Mr. Chair, I am not surprised that the member mentioned the acquisitions of the Globemaster and the Hercules. It is not that hard to buy things that are already built and in production. They can be bought off the shelf. In the case of the Globemaster, it was an advanced contract award. They were bought six months after the decision was made to buy them. Buying things off the shelf is easy, but doing the things that the government cannot do and that it has messed up is hard. That is why everything else is in progress.
Let me mention an acquisition that I am particularly interested in seeing done properly. It is based on a letter to the Minister of National Defence on October 2009 and signed by General Natynczyk, who is here with us today, regarding the rotary search and rescue aircraft.
We acquired 15 Cormorants in 2004. They were deployed around the country, including to Trenton Air Force Base. In 2005 it was decided that they would be replaced, on the condition that it was temporary, by CH-146 Griffons, which are less adequate than the Cormorant for the search and rescue role. This was due to the unavailability of the Cormorant fleet that had been promised by the manufacturer.
Could the minister tell us the percentage of availability of a Cormorant aircraft as we speak today? What percentage of a time is a Cormorant helicopter available to task for search and rescue?