Mr. Speaker, a short time ago, there was a hearing under way between DND officers and industry experts in the field of providing equipment and the like to the Department of National Defence. In that hearing, they had a slide projector, and this report comes from Dave Pugliese's “Defence Watch”. When the slide came up on the screen to present their thoughts on fixed wing search and rescue, the screen was filled with a giant question mark. It has been a question mark for the Department of National Defence for quite some time.
I come from an area that is one of those bases, the 103 Search and Research Unit at 9 Wing Gander. This issue has been going on for quite some time. The Minister of National Defence said on repeated occasions how this would be done. In December 2008, the minister announced that he planned to move quickly on the search and rescue acquisition, procuring an aircraft in early 2009. It has not happened.
A study is being undertaken by National Research in conjunction with three departments, Industry Canada, Public Works and Department of National Defence. Therefore, I have two questions.
First, is the bidding process going to begin soon? Did National Research recommend that it start from scratch?
Second, does the Air Force have in mind what type of aircraft it is considering to replenish the fleet in fixed-wing search and rescue, particularly the Buffalos on the west coast and the Hercules on the east coast?