Mr. Speaker, I am glad I have been given the opportunity to tell Canadians that Liberals across the way and the member who just asked the question have written it so that they can rule out Cormorant and Sikorsky from competing in the bids.
How will it be a fair bidding process when the government has specifically structured it so that Sikorsky and Cormorant cannot compete? Cormorant won the process fair and square before. Sikorsky is one of the biggest manufacturers in the world of helicopters. They are both ruled out of the bidding process because the PM does not think that meshes with what looks good on his face. That is a shame.
I will tell members a little private story in response to that question. I flew in the Eurocopter when it was brought to Ottawa. My staff and I had an interest in this issue even before I was serving on the Standing Committee for National Defence and Veterans Affairs. I actually flew around in that helicopter.
I asked the officials from Eurocopter about some of the details of the aircraft. They crassly told me, because I do not think they figured out that I was an MP, that it would come down to where the helicopter was assembled. Because of the way the Prime Minister wanted to guide the process for getting jobs, they said the government would not go with the other helicopter. Because of where it would be assembled and because of the jobs that would be in and around the Prime Minister's neck of the woods, the Eurocopter would win. It was driven by the most partisan political considerations of all.