Mr. Speaker, I could not answer the question before because the member was not asking it of me. Now that he has asked it of me, I would be happy to answer.
The simple fact is that the member for St. John's East is wrong about the MOU. We cannot do a competition and stay within the MOU. The people who are managing the MOU today have made that pretty clear. Dan Ross said:
In terms of the joint strike fighter MOU, we have to be clear that in order to run a competition, Canada would be forced to withdraw from the MOU. I would point that out because the MOU precludes that countries have agreed not to apply the normal IRB process.
The competition that we are talking about would apply to the old “normal” IRB process.
A Canadian competition would have to entail the normal IRB process, and you cannot do that within the MOU.
The hon. member is just simply wrong. This is from the man who has been ADM materiel for the past five years. He knows the MOU inside and out and is working with it every day.
With respect to the specific question about Manitoba, Magellan Aerospace has already been highly active in the program. I cannot give him a specific number of jobs or specific dollars; that is being developed.
The other companies in Winnipeg who will be involved undoubtedly are Composites Innovation Centre and Northern Aero. Manitoba is going to get some very lucrative business out of this program.