Government Operations committee  I can't speak specifically to the hypothetical of whether that was a disadvantage or not. The only thing I could say you would have to do is look at the requirements and the operational need of those requirements and then assess your decisions based on that. As I mentioned, industry will adapt to requirements.

Government Operations committee  By business relationships, I'm going to assume you mean the major contracts we have under way today. The major contracts under way today would be through the AJISS Arctic/offshore patrol ship and joint support ship in service support contract for the Royal Canadian Navy. We are an electronics system integrator as part of the NSS to the individual shipyards that are building parts of the national shipbuilding strategy.

Government Operations committee  The challenges I think all industry, including Thales, faces are predictability and timeliness, and anything we can do to remove ambiguity. Industry makes decisions based on clarity, and they struggle with ambiguity. However, businesses can adapt to almost any situation. Those adaptations may not always be what we want to have happen, but they will adapt.

Government Operations committee  We deal with Canadian military procurement through the methods available to us today. We engage in procurement when they have workshops. We engage in open forums. We engage in responding to requests for information and to multiple versions of RFPs, requests for proposals. We also engage in terms of our own investment in Canada.

Government Operations committee  Within the company, the project management processes we have are well defined and based on project management principles, PMP, and the professional certification of project managers. Principally, that drives the way in which we develop a work breakdown structure, the work we're going to do, the way costing people have helped cost it.

Government Operations committee  Thank you very much. Good morning, Mr. Chair, and members of the committee. As noted, I am Chris Pogue, the CEO for Thales Canada, part of the Thales group of companies, a global technology leader with 80,000 employees operating in 68 countries. I want to extend my sincere appreciation for this opportunity to discuss defence procurement, with a specific emphasis on Canada's air defence needs.