National Defence committee  There's one point of clarification, Mr. Chair. The litigation is not ongoing. The negotiations with the class are ongoing.

National Defence committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. First of all, we expect—and I think we have informed the bidders—that a contract will be no more than $500,000. More importantly, we would like the outside expertise. Our discussions with the private sector suggested that there are professional firms out th

Public Accounts committee  No, Mr. Chairman.

Public Accounts committee  No, we haven't.

Public Accounts committee  We have placed no procurement order and have spent no money on acquisition. We continue to be part of the MOU and we pay into the development costs.

Public Accounts committee  That's a good question. It's a very structured governance approach. I would ask Mr. Ross to speak to that question. He's intimately involved with the office. To clarify, in 1997, when we joined the program, it was not called the joint strike fighter.... Was it called the joint

Public Accounts committee  Could you speak to the...?

Public Accounts committee  Absolutely.

Public Accounts committee  We would have given the Minister of National Defence and cabinet three numbers, $5.7 billion for sustainment, $9 billion for acquisition, $10 billion for operating. So 5.7 plus 9 is close to the 15 that I believe the member is referring to, Mr. Chair.

Public Accounts committee  I think it's fair to say that based on how we communicated all of these things going back eight years, we communicated exactly the same way, with acquisition costs and 20 years' worth of sustainment costs.

Public Accounts committee  The decision-making process and the documents that were involved included the full 20-year life cycle costs, which included acquisition, sustainment for 20 years, and operating for 20 years. As we have done in the past, and if I could, I would just read an excerpt from one of o

Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chairman, if I could ask for the question.… There were many numbers the member referred to. I'm not sure what clarification he wants on which particular number. If it's the $6 billion, which is the $75 million times the 65 aircraft at the time, or the discrepancy between th

Public Accounts committee  Sorry, Mr. Chairman, just to clarify, there were no different accounts. As I said on Tuesday, our last four major asset acquisitions have spoken to sustainment costs and acquisition costs, which is exactly what we did in the case of the F–35 and how we responded. Operating cost

Public Accounts committee  Thank you. I may ask the CFO speak to it, but I would say this. Our understanding at the time, and frankly it continues to be so, notwithstanding the comments of the PBO, is that operating costs were not included. We can find no evidence of operating costs. We asked them to cla

Public Accounts committee  Yes, absolutely.