Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for raising some thoughtful questions about why we should be careful about moving forward too quickly given that the price of these F-35 aircrafts has gone from some $50 million to now $70 million to $75 million, with some people suggesting that it could be as much as $100 million.
Although I understand that the breakdown of the price to only $5.5 billion is for the aircraft itself, but we do know that the ongoing support over 20 years is also an escalating number. Interestingly enough, the overall cost has been estimated at some $16 billion since day one and yet the projections of the increases continue to go up. Then the parliamentary secretary somehow suggested that we would be out of deficit in 2016 even though the Parliamentary Budget Officer said that there would still be a $9 billion deficit at that time.
The member has raised some important questions. Since it is the largest military procurement in the history of our country, we should demonstrate to Canadians, I believe, that we have looked at it very carefully and that Parliament is prepared to get behind a proposal that makes sense and in fact is at the right price but for aircraft that meet our absolute needs rather than, as the parliamentary secretary said, for Afghan-like missions.