Gordon O'Connor

[Business of Supply, May 17th, 2007]

Mr. Chair, I am not aware of any use of that and I can assure the House that the Canadian Forces do not have cluster munitions and have no intention of acquiring them.

[Business of Supply, May 17th, 2007]

Mr. Chair, it is not so much a matter of defending the north but of imposing our sovereignty. We need to ensure that other nations respect our laws and respect our claim to the waters and the lands, and we intend to enforce that.

[Business of Supply, May 17th, 2007]

Mr. Chair, whatever is causing it, the ice is melting in the north. I do not know when the Northwest Passage will open up but that is one of the key considerations for our sovereignty. Our government and this department are fully committed to having air, land and sea forces available to deploy into the north, as well as satellites. We are going to enforce our sovereignty along with other government departments.

[Business of Supply, May 17th, 2007]

Mr. Chair, as I said earlier today, we will be meeting our Arctic commitments because we consider enforcing our sovereignty in the Arctic is one of the key planks of this government and of the Department of National Defence.

An article that came out recently was full of errors but once the government makes a decision on a specific piece of equipment, an announcement will be made.

[Business of Supply, May 17th, 2007]

Mr. Chair, I believe the information the member has is correct. Antonovs were used to get somewhere close to Afghanistan. Then the equipment was moved onto C-17s, which were fully equipped to go into a hostile zone. They have defensive measures and all those sort of things, which the Antonovs do not. The Antonovs are pure commercial aircraft.

When we acquire our C-17s, which will start in August, we will use our C-17s to their fullest to support not only the mission in Afghanistan but other missions. However, I anticipate that from time to time we will still have requirements to rent Antonovs when our C-17s are fully committed.

[Business of Supply, May 17th, 2007]

No, Mr. Chair, the cost is $85 million. It is as if someone bought a car, then bought the spare parts for 20 years and put the cost of driving the car into the car. That is how DND calculates these costs.

As for the actual cost, if one is a very rich person and has saved money, one can get one of these aircraft for about $85 million Canadian.

[Business of Supply, May 17th, 2007]

Mr. Chair, as the member said, the estimated total project cost for the 17 aircraft is $3.2 billion. That includes the actual cost of the aircraft, which are $85 million Canadian each. It also includes spare parts and infrastructure, that is, buildings and whatever they have to do, and salaries of people involved in the aircraft.

[Business of Supply, May 17th, 2007]

Mr. Chair, as I mentioned earlier, defence spends about $600 million a year on search and rescue. It is one of our vital missions. We maintain a number of fleets to meet that mission.

The member has asked me about what our intentions are in the future. As I said, the air force staff are looking at options for the future in terms of what they will replace the current fleets with. That option analysis is not complete, or at least it has not reached my desk yet.

[Business of Supply, May 17th, 2007]

Mr. Chair, as I said, we made a significant move today. We are getting the defence department so it cannot be subject to ITARs anymore. We are going to move on the rest of the government operations and then we are going to move on to industry and within a few years we are going to cure this problem.

[Business of Supply, May 17th, 2007]

Mr. Chair, it is not true that it is as a result of recent acquisitions. It has been around for decades and the previous government ignored it for decades. Year after year the Liberals ignored it. They should be answering for this, not us.

We are cleaning up the mess. We are getting the job done.