Ahmed Hussen on Questions on the Order Paper

With regard to Lt. Gen. Michael Hood’s testimony at the Senate Standing Committee for National Security and Defence in which he indicated that our NORAD and NATO commitments were previously being met, but a policy change which required meeting these commitments concurrently resulted in a requirement to increase the number of fighters available: (a) who made this policy change; (b) was Lt. Gen. Hood consulted prior to the decision to make this change; (c) if the answer to (b) is in the negative, what is the rationale; (d) on what basis or recommendation was this policy change made; (e) on what date was this policy change made; (f) why was this change made before the completion of the government’s Defence Policy Review; (g) what is the rationale for this policy change; (h) since November 3, 2015, has the Armed Forces’ policy requirements changed for the (i) Chinook helicopter fleet, (ii) CP-140 Aurora surveillance plane fleet, (iii) Griffin helicopter fleet, (iv) Sea King helicopter fleet, (v) C-17 Globemaster fleet, (vi) C-130 Hercules fleet; (i) if the answer to any part of ( h) is affirmative (i) what was the change, (ii) who made it, (iii) on what basis or recommendation was it made, (iv) on what date was it made, (v) why was it made before the completion of the government’s Defence Policy Review, (vi) what is the rationale for it; (j) what are the estimated additional operational costs of this policy change; (k) what is the total number of fighter jets required for the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) to implement this policy change; (l) what will be the result of this policy change with respect to the RCAF’s NATO contributions; and (m) what is the expected result of this policy change with respect to the RCAF’s NORAD contributions?