Public Accounts committee  I was getting to it. It's simply that to find out their exact reasons why they disagree, you need to ask the department for that—what their reasons were and why they disagree. We felt that we laid out in the chapter enough rationale that you would conclude they did not exercise w

Public Accounts committee  Again, Mr. Chair, I think it's best if the departments respond to that. Simply, they concluded—

Public Accounts committee  Simply, they sent us a letter saying they disagreed, and I don't remember any further details of it right now.

Public Accounts committee  Thank you. The 36 years is not our number and not our estimate of the life cycle. It was in fact National Defence's estimate of the life cycle. Therefore, by definition, to apply life cycle costing we felt that it should include the whole 36 years, since that is the estimated li

Public Accounts committee  My understanding is that National Defence does have the numbers for 36 years, but the numbers that have been brought forward for decision-making purposes and used, for example, in response to the Parliamentary Budget Office numbers, were based on 20 of those 36 years.

Public Accounts committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Certainly I would be happy to give some further thought to that, but I think the critical thing for me—again, I haven't been through the government's plan—is making sure that there is a very clear statement of purpose for what is expected to happen from th

Public Accounts committee  I'll ask Mr. Reed to answer that question.

Public Accounts committee  One of the unique aspects of this particular arrangement was the fact that for industrial benefits, companies from partner countries could participate in industrial benefits but would have to compete for those industrial benefits rather than being guaranteed industrial benefits—f

Public Accounts committee  Thank you. I'll ask Mr. Berthelette to answer the question.

Public Accounts committee  Thank you. I think actually it would be better for the department or the Parliamentary Budget Office to respond to that question. I don't think I can specifically answer for either of them.

Public Accounts committee  Certainly we did receive a copy of National Defence's comparison in which they arrived at the amount that's displayed in exhibit 2.6. We received their analysis of that, and of how they arrived at those numbers starting from the PBO's estimated numbers.

Public Accounts committee  Thank you. Certainly the ability to compare was one of the concerns we had. For example, the Parliamentary Budget Office calculation indicates that they were assuming a 30-year life cycle. But again, the numbers that were prepared by National Defence were taken from the numbers

Public Accounts committee  Again, in terms of the Department of National Defence having approved budget numbers, they had the numbers of $9 billion and $16 billion. Obviously those estimates, those numbers, have to go through the appropriations process on an annual basis to get final approval.

Public Accounts committee  And that's precisely why it's important for the government to explain, if they are going to start acquiring these jets, what the potential impact is going to be on budgets into the future, because that will have very much an impact on what has to be approved by Parliament in thos

Public Accounts committee  Thank you. Again, we can't ascribe any motive. What we did was we identified that life cycle costing was the best practice. Life cycle costing should have been used. There were certain costs that were not included, including the full life cycle, the full 36 years rather than 20