Public Accounts committee  Paragraph 2.69 does state that, for example, “in 2008, a budget of CAN$16 billion was established to operate and sustain the F-35 over 20 years.” Again, I think that paragraph of the report indicates the amounts that were approved, that they were established budgets, and the time

Public Accounts committee  Yes, the other amount was a budget of $9 billion for the acquisition of the fighter jets.

Public Accounts committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. The number of $25 billion was a number that was established by Defence that included both the purchase and the maintenance cost, and the budgets were approved through normal process.

Public Accounts committee  Thank you. The documents that we saw, which were prepared by National Defence, indicated that they understood the need to do life cycle costing, and for the most part, indicated that they understood that the life cycle of these aircraft was going to be at least 30 years. I think

Public Accounts committee  I think the question would be best posed to the department. I can't really speak for the department. However, my understanding is that using 20 years was the normal practice of the department.

Public Accounts committee  The question, I guess, is sort of one of general practice. Certainly I would say that the best practice, particularly for a purchase of this size, would be to say, what are the full costs of the actual acquisition of the jets, what are the costs of running and operating the jets,

Public Accounts committee  Thank you. The need to do life cycle costing on significant acquisitions of assets is, as we state in the report, normal practice of Treasury Board. In fact, it's normal practice of the Department of National Defence. So the full life cycle costing, understanding what an asset i

Public Accounts committee  As a general answer, Treasury Board policies need to be followed by every department.

Public Accounts committee  We certainly saw instances where Public Works was trying to get the information from National Defence. Public Works was trying to do due diligence. However as we state in the chapter, they were hampered by the fact that they were brought in late to the process. But then also, eve

Public Accounts committee  We haven't gone through the plan in detail. We haven't done an audit on the plan. I think the critical starting point in anything moving forward—and I think it is very important to get this right from here on in—is that the organizations charged with managing this process are giv

Public Accounts committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. Yes, we received everything we asked for, and in fact if we hadn't, we have a responsibility to specifically state that in our work. We received any information that we asked for.

Public Accounts committee  Thank you. What we are using in that statement is National Defence's numbers, so this is, at least, a $25 billion purchase. We've identified that there are issues and questions around how that number was calculated, but regardless of whether the number is higher or not, it's at

Public Accounts committee  That number includes what National Defence estimated to be the operating, maintenance, and sustaining cost for a 20-year period. We would have expected that the number would have included the additional years, so, no, it was not a full life cycle cost. It was a 20-year cycle cost

Public Accounts committee  We didn't make a decision or conclusion on the basis of whether policy was violated or not. We identified that there were items missing from the life cycle costing. While the department was presenting something that was a life cycle cost, we felt it had elements missing and wasn'

Public Accounts committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. First of all, I think the honourable member is buying cars the same way I am, trying to keep them going for 25 years. Having said that, the important thing in life cycle costing is to get a full picture of what those costs are going to be to operate somethi