National Defence committee  Thank you very much for the question. Of course, we're using the EH101, the Cormorants, in the rotary wing search and rescue role across Canada. It is supplemented by the Bell helicopters, the Griffon helicopters, for search and rescue as well. We have now done a fair amount of

National Defence committee  The AgustaWestland aircraft, which you called the EH101, of course were acquired some time ago. I don't have the acquisition numbers with us. In fact, we're approaching mid-life on those airframes. They have been the search and rescue aircraft for some time. The ones that are in

National Defence committee  The Sikorsky is a variant of, I believe, a Black Hawk helicopter, and it's being marinized for being brought to sea. But most important is the level of systems integration, because as we upgrade the frigates and their capability from an anti-submarine warfare perspective, we have

National Defence committee  Thank you for the question. Yes, some of the money in here actually comes to the maintenance that we're talking about there. If I could just say very quickly, the $3 billion is an overall estimate of what we would need, not necessarily what we could execute with industry, so th

National Defence committee  There is nothing specific in the supplementary estimates. That is our human resource plan, where we define potential future states and risks. It also contains a number of things that we are doing to mitigate against those risks.

National Defence committee  As you can appreciate, the shipbuilding strategy has many projects that underpin it and, in fact, a few projects that precede it are very large enablers. For example, the modernization of the Canadian patrol frigates, a very important ship to the navy, is well under way. The ship

National Defence committee  It's principally coast guard. Again, we're working—and one of the things about the strategy is that it has brought the users of federal fleets working much more closely together for the Canadian Armed Forces. It's also where the joint support ships will be constructed, so we are

National Defence committee  Okay. I can't speak for the bidders. Our discussions with them indicate that, no, it's not an increased risk. It's a reality of getting a degree of backstop certainty given the financial liability they are incurring.

National Defence committee  We had budgeted for actual infrastructure improvements, assuming the bidders would come in and ask for that funding. They have not. They have sought that funding elsewhere, so the funding does exist within the project budgets.

National Defence committee  It's not specifically in the estimates, but yes, it is in the work that we're doing....

National Defence committee  I was involved in creating the report you're quoting from. It was at a time when we had just come through the first attempt for ships. The coast guard had tried two attempts to benchmark patrol vessels, taking a historical, competitive approach, as we would do for other commoditi

National Defence committee  Okay. In the Auditor General's report that came out this week—and we work with them extensively—one of the findings was that in fact National Defence and Public Works are working to acquire the ships in a timely and affordable manner, consistent with the strategy. They have hig

National Defence committee  No. Public Works leads in the strategy.

National Defence committee  The requests for proposal themselves were not designed around transferring this risk. It actually allowed the bidders to come in and put in a price against their infrastructure upgrades, which we anticipated paying over time and in fact had money in the budgets to cover that. Al

National Defence committee  As the assets come online, we are immediately putting them in for first training and then starting to deploy them. Some examples...you asked about the Chinooks. They have started to arrive. The wing has been put together in Petawawa. It's moving to its new facility. So it's now g