Public Accounts committee  We didn't do any of our own estimates or analysis. All the numbers included in the chapter are numbers we got from National Defence.

Public Accounts committee  As I said in my opening statement, we absolutely stand by the facts in our report, and the facts were cleared and agreed to by the departments involved.

Public Accounts committee  For the record, the recommendation is contained in paragraph 2.77. I can read that into the record, if so desired.

Public Accounts committee  The recommendation we made was presented to the department. The department's response to our recommendation was that they agreed, and they will continue to refine their life-cycle cost estimates and make them available to the public. In terms of our recommendation, that was what

Public Accounts committee  The only specific recommendation we made was on the costing information, and that was agreed to by the department. The actual mechanism by which they do that really wasn't something that was concerning to us. It was just the fact that they would make the information public.

Public Accounts committee  Really, in terms of the industrial benefits, what we looked at was the information being brought forward to decision-makers. We identified that there were a number of estimates in terms of the industrial benefits. They didn't always include the range of what industrial benefits c

Public Accounts committee  There have been, I believe, some references in the U.S. to the fact that if you do some comparisons of the F-35 to an F-18, the cost of maintaining a particular aircraft might be higher. What that does is it simply means that it raises the types of questions that need to be ask

Public Accounts committee  Certainly some of the time period we were looking at in this audit was the same time period as the helicopter purchase, so the fact that we've identified that there were some similar issues in both cases was not particularly surprising. But I think what this does indicate.... T

Public Accounts committee  We certainly could take a look and see what type of information we have. We wouldn't do sort of an exhaustive search of information.

Public Accounts committee  It would be whatever we had where there might be some references to sustainment costs. We could table them with this committee.

Public Accounts committee  Right. The other point, about the 20 years versus a longer life cycle, that, to me, is one of the defining things about this type of a program. This purchase was different. This was a development program. This was for a very complex asset. One of the things we identified that wa

Public Accounts committee  We didn't try to analyze what the life-cycle costs would be. We didn't try to estimate whether they were going to be similar or not. We recognized that National Defence was saying they felt the additional costs beyond the contract for sustainment would be similar to those for the

Public Accounts committee  I think there are a number of pieces to your question. As I tried to indicate in the opening statement, the 36-year life was not our number. It was a number based on information National Defence was receiving from the joint strike fighter office. That information included 36 ye

Public Accounts committee  If I understood the way the question was posed, that wasn't what I was saying. I'm sorry for the confusion. What I was saying was that we did receive all the information we felt we needed to receive in order to draw our conclusions. There were certain types of analysis we felt s

Public Accounts committee  There are two parts to that. The second part, in terms of no planes purchased, is correct. On the first part, in terms of no money spent, we identified a significant amount of money that was spent in terms of the development part and the industrial benefit part of this program.