Mr. Speaker, I respect my colleague across the way and we agree on many things, but there are so many factually wrong things in what he has said that it is hard to know where to start.
First, the Chinook is not replacing the Sea King. It is a completely different program. We are sticking to the JSS budget, the joint support ship budget. The U.K. is buying 138 airplanes and Norway has a pretty similar climate to Canada. The engines issue on the F-18, and I was there and I was part of that process, was one of many factors that said F-18 versus F-16.
Has he asked the Canadian Forces or anybody in the Canadian Forces, army navy or air force, if they like what we are doing? Has he asked people in the Canadian air force on the fighter side what they think of this program? Has he asked industry what it thinks of this program? When industry talks about certainty, it talks about certainty of a program going ahead. This program, as everybody in the industry has said, is the best program for it because it gives it the absolute best opportunity to go far beyond the IRB process.
I will quote Paul Kalil from Avcorp, who said, “Canada is going to see the long term benefits that come with the economies of scale that a program this size delivers, and even greater opportunities, based on this timely government decision because of the technology transfers that that facilitates”.
This is important because the technology that is in the F-35 is the next generation of technology and getting in on the ground floor of that will lead to whatever comes after that. Has he asked any of those questions of industry or the Canadian Forces?