Public Accounts committee  Thank you for your question. I guess I'll come at it like this. We have two issues, I think, one going forward and one dealing with the legacy. Going forward, we want to make sure we have a modern information system that can collect the financial and inventory information and p

Public Accounts committee  I will ask Monsieur Rochette to talk about the Auditor General's work on the financial aspect, and then I can speak to you about the quantity and loss parts.

Public Accounts committee  Thank you for the question. I think it's a number of factors. I don't think there is a single source. Sure, it's a question of resources, so for us to—

Public Accounts committee  Both. For us to implement an AIT, as Pat indicated, the first costs we looked at were over $1 billion. That's a lot of money.

Public Accounts committee  That's money that we would have to take from our capital budget, which we use to buy military equipment.

Public Accounts committee  Absolutely. The department has a resource management committee that I chair, and the chief of the defence staff is on that. Every major financial proposal goes through that committee to be examined, justified, reviewed. We have an investment plan that is laid out over the next

Public Accounts committee  Yes, absolutely.

Public Accounts committee  Oh, no, absolutely. This is a priority for us.

Public Accounts committee  As they do the project definition work, they will look at the likely technological solutions we would use, and that will be part of the project, whether it's radio chip technology or whether we do bar codes. Don't forget that some of our inventory isn't sitting in a nice Canadian

Public Accounts committee  We need technology that accommodates that.

Public Accounts committee  Sure. Every major capital project, as I said, comes to our resource management committee, which I chair. The chief financial officer is there and the chief of the defence staff is there. We will review and approve projects that go into our investment plan. When we do our budgeti

Public Accounts committee  Absolutely. When I buy a ship, I need to know how much it's going to cost me to design it, to buy it, and to run it for the next 50 years. Our financial budgeting is unlike anything else in the federal government, because we're taking a 50-year view of what we do. With the deci

Public Accounts committee  Thank you for the question. I would answer in two ways. We—and the Auditor General agrees—have made a lot of progress and have a reasonably good handle on quantity, so it's not a question of a military operation overseas not being able to get parts. That is our first and primord

Public Accounts committee  The House will adjourn, and you'll be back at...what, the end of January?

Public Accounts committee  We'll be happy to provide it when you're back after the holidays.