National Defence committee  I'll ask the Vice-Chief of the Defence Staff to speak to the issue of JSS, and I'll come back on the fixed-wing SAR issue, Mr. Chairman.

National Defence committee  Mr. Chairman, on the fixed-wing search and rescue issue, we are not, as you know, in the market looking for a contractor at this point, so we obviously have no particular preference for any aircraft. When we do go to market, whoever is out there who's able to meet the requirement

National Defence committee  Absolutely. And I think we would certainly be prepared to have the Chief of the Air Staff speak in detail to the requirements that he has set out for that requirement.

National Defence committee  We'll get back to you in writing.

National Defence committee  I would ask the Chief of Military Personnel to speak to that.

National Defence committee  Thank you for that question, and thank you for the latter comment also. I think the minister, while he was here, did try to address that question on the progress and on what's been happening with such things as education, health care, and roads. On the Canada first defence strat

National Defence committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I'll turn the question on mental health funding over to my colleague, the general. Regarding Kapyong, I was not aware that there had been a number of requests for a briefing. I apologize. I don't see any particular reason we wouldn't actually just give

National Defence committee  It's a great question. I was with the minister in Munich on the weekend. We had a number of bilaterals with the Americans, the Poles, the Germans, the Bulgarians, and other people. The interesting thing is that whole of government makes a lot of sense. It's easy to write down on

Public Accounts committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, Ms. Fraser. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for the invitation to be with you today to discuss the 2009 report of the Auditor General. I'd like to begin by saying that the Department of National Defence welcomes all the recommendati

Public Accounts committee  Mr. Chairman, on the surplus in 2007-08, I would ask either my CFO or the vice-admiral to speak to it. But I would say two things. We had planned for the level of appropriation as we understood it would be. There were some decisions taken well into the year that actually augmen

Public Accounts committee  I'd ask the CFO to respond. But the first thing I would say is that the lapse in 2007-08 I believe was essentially an anomaly. I believe there was one other time in recent history when we actually lapsed anything, and that was a fairly small lapse. So we work as effectively as we

Public Accounts committee  The simple answer to that would be that it would take pressure off what is probably not very efficient or effective planning, but I have stated in other committees that I totally understand the Department of Finance's challenge: 5% of our budget, which would be $1 billion, runs t

Public Accounts committee  My answer would be no, but one of my colleagues may--

Public Accounts committee  Given the nature of the decision-making in that year--Vice, you were actually there--given the decision-making that affected us in terms of funds flowing into the department starting in August, I would say probably yes, because a lot of it was associated with the uncertainty of t

Public Accounts committee  The first thing I would say is that I would take some exception probably to the opening remarks about closing bases and unfunded soldiers. I liken this, frankly, to a situation where I have a long-term plan and a budget that goes with it, and if my wages are cut by 2% in any give