Mr. Speaker, it was not so long ago that the Minister of National Defence was insisting that the total cost of the F-35s was going to be $9 billion. Anyone who said differently was simply making up numbers. The minister also said that we did not need a bidding process because the F-35 was the only alternative if we wanted to give our troops the best equipment possible.
If he still thinks that giving Lockheed Martin the contract without a bidding process is the right thing to do, he needs to stop hiding behind the Minister of Public Works and Government Services and stand up and explain himself.