Public Accounts committee  On the first question, as I indicated, the $470 million we've approved for the additional Australian aircraft includes the upgrades, certain interoperability and other aspects that would be included. In the overall $3 billion, and that's where we go from the $1.2 million to the $

Public Accounts committee  We've moved away from that model, that process we used to do within the materiel group of that time, doing scenarios and developing our own costs. We now have the chief financial officer model, and he's responsible for it. Within “Strong, Secure, Engaged” there are some projects

Public Accounts committee  We have worked very closely with Australia in understanding the fatigue. Some of the experts are absolutely here in Canada. That's already been said. I was speaking to some of them late last week. The centre of excellence for F-18 fatigue in the world is here in Canada, at Mirabe

Public Accounts committee  Yes, sir. This is unrelated in the context that it's not just fighters. We have an aerospace engineering test establishment in Cold Lake. It's been there for decades, but the way it operates has changed quite significantly. This is something we've had under way for some time.

Public Accounts committee  We are moving it out of Cold Lake.

Public Accounts committee  It is part of the process we have gone through. Just to be clear, sir, we're not pulling everybody out of Cold Lake.

Public Accounts committee  It was over a number of years. Gradually it was made and presented to our minister. What happened over time was that the work done in Cold Lake became increasingly the administrative headquarters for this kind of effort, which is now done around the world. We used to bring the

Public Accounts committee  Thank you very much for the questions. On the first one, it is 18 flyable aircraft. We have said up to seven additional ones, for spares. We will likely not go that far. The Royal Australian Air Force has been very forthcoming. In fact, they've provided us with a broad number of

Public Accounts committee  I think, sir, that my answer to your question would be the third.

Public Accounts committee  It is across all of our fleets, and how we do it is when the costs mature through our force development process. The $1.2 billion is an incremental number. It is the additional funds that we will need to keep the current aircraft maintained. Through “Strong, Secure, Engaged”, we'

Public Accounts committee  No, sir. It is not within the $3 billion, which is—

Public Accounts committee  Sir, because—and thank you again for the question—what it is that we're specifically going to do is to concentrate our upgrades. We are engaging allies in what's already under way. For example, the U.S. military, which is investing in some of its F-18s, will continue to operate t

Public Accounts committee  Yes, sir. Thank you for the question, sir. Since pre-qualifying the five—again, one has declined to proceed—for the four we have, we have been working with them in a number of areas where we want to get their feedback and have been going back and forth with various documents. W

Public Accounts committee  We have always relied heavily on industry. A lot of the intellectual property in the work has always been there, certainly for our most complex platforms. A lot of that is now done in Canada by the likes of L3 and IMP, which have always been critical, right back to World War II a

Public Accounts committee  Thank you. If I could just speak specifically to the maintainers, what we're doing.... You talked earlier about the exponential rate of maintenance. It's not quite exponential that we're seeing. A lot of it's at the third line. A lot of this is how we're now using industry. Spec