Public Accounts committee  Yes, sir. We looked at total costs because we don't really know what's in the fiscal planning framework per se. We had no choice but to do a total-cost basis.

Public Accounts committee  Sir, we were responding to a request that we received to provide an estimate of life-cycle costs, but I would be interested in both. I would be interested in both. As a former fiscal policy officer, I'd be interested in both as well.

Public Accounts committee  Well, sir, it's a very good question. When you go beyond 20 years, are there additional uncertainties, perhaps? I mean, we don't know what the cost of fuel will be in 20 years, but again, this is sort of standard practice to look at life cycle and to use what we deem to be a reas

Public Accounts committee  Sir, with the CF-18s, the shelf life started in the early 1980s and continues to the present.

Public Accounts committee  The information we got from the SAR, the selected acquisition report, work from DND, and just other airplanes in general was that 30 years is a reasonable estimate.

Public Accounts committee  Sir, that's a better question put to the Department of National Defence. We're very comfortable with 30 years.

Public Accounts committee  Yes, I think we could.... The Auditor General provided some disclosure to us on what the numbers could look like on a 20-year basis—what's fully in. It's not hard for people like us to move numbers from 20 to 30 years, or to 36 years. We could easily do the work. But yes, you get

Public Accounts committee  You create the impression there are lower costs over a 20-year period, but again, it's not hard for us to extrapolate that to what that would look like on a 30-year basis.

Public Accounts committee  Since the AG report we've had some, but very limited, follow-up with the Department of National Defence officials, and more on just providing confirmation on our side of what we had included in terms of operation and support. We were not poking at their numbers. All these numbers

Public Accounts committee  Again, the original request goes back to the House finance committee in the late fall of 2010, when they asked for full life-cycle cost. From the Auditor General's report, we have leaned that we received only partial information with respect to what we call sustainment, or on the

Public Accounts committee  We don't know the reason for that, sir, other than what you have heard in previous testimony from deputy ministers.

Public Accounts committee  Certainly we're using parameters. Again, we're creating an index based on history for these costs. There are parameters we're looking at that deal with performance, deal with design, and deal with weight. But yes, sir, I'm sorry, we're using parameters.

Public Accounts committee  It's a yes. I apologize, sir.

Public Accounts committee  That's a very good question, sir. When we started this project in 2010, we went to different people to look at what our choices were with models. We were also looking at the history of this particular fighter plane from the early 1990s to present day. We looked at more bottom-u

Public Accounts committee  I think that's well said. I would add to that, sir, that these types of models.... Everybody is using these models. It wasn't hard to find them in the U.K. and the United States. They're well used. In the SAR reports that we're using now, we provide an estimate actually of O&