National Defence committee  We have, collectively. Again, our colleagues at Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada feed us those numbers, and they have. I just don't have them with me. I apologize.

National Defence committee  They were telling us last week that just in the yard, their shipbuilding workforce is now over 500, and engineers and procurement specialists beyond that. Of course, in that whole supply chain of systems and pipework and cable, it would be in the thousands. Again, I just don't ha

National Defence committee  These are local engineers. We do have a reach-back to the company, ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems. They have a Canadian division as well, and have actually hired in Canada. That's really to make sure that if we have any questions about interpretation of the design package or things

National Defence committee  We started in 2008. We received Government of Canada approval in 2010 and issued the requests for proposal. In late 2012 we signed the umbrella agreements with the two yards. They then spent about 36 months each completely recapitalizing their facilities, impressively so. As Ms.

National Defence committee  I would say that in the evolution of specifications by which we build ships, if you went back a generation ago, the military specification would have been the highest standard. That's still true, I would say, for our front-line combatants. The way we will design and build the Can

National Defence committee  Regarding the joint support ships, the ships themselves are based on a mature German design, the Berlin-class ship. We have acquired that design and brought it into the yard where we have a combined workforce. I have some people in the yard, engineers and others, working with a s

National Defence committee  Thank you for the question. You said that the submarines are at the end of their life, but that's not quite true. This may be a positive effect of an unfortunate situation, but at the very beginning of their life in Canada, the submarines went to sea less often than was suggeste

National Defence committee  A generation ago, the distinction in size and firepower between a frigate and a destroyer would have been quite different. Nowadays, they've probably morphed in size of ship. I think what has happened is, as we've retired our Tribal-class destroyers, the two capabilities that we

National Defence committee  We have about a decade, so you're exactly correct. We've structured all 12 ships, as far as the layout of compartments and spaces and cabling go, but we've only fitted four with the command and control capability, since you only need one on each coast. We can actually move the eq

National Defence committee  Yes, it's specifically New Zealand, not Australia.

National Defence committee  I was just saying that Australia had the same ships. It is part of it, yes. I would say in the overall context of the work that we did and the capabilities that showed up. For the New Zealand navy, when they were looking at all the capabilities and they looked around the world co

National Defence committee  If I may add to that, on the innovation, of course, our minister, Minister Sajjan, is extremely interested in this area, which is a key part of the defence policy review. He's challenged us to see how we can further use innovation in working, as indicated, with Innovation, Scienc

National Defence committee  The strategy itself, of building in Canada, is actually to reduce that very risk. If we were to go offshore and acquire these assets—and we see it in other areas of military equipment—we would be absolutely beholden to export licences and other things. Bringing it into Canada is

National Defence committee  I'm really not the right person, in the context of capability and future capabilities. That would be our vice chief, chief of force development, and others. What I will say from experience, having a couple of times been involved in looking at nuclear submarines in Canada, is tha

National Defence committee  I apologize, but I would like to add something to Ms. Campbell's comments about technology. When you look around the world at submarine technology and the advances in air-independent propulsion in fuel cells, there is a lot happening in this area which in the future could be us