National Defence committee  Could I add to the point you made about being integrated? That is incredibly important. We find that as you break it down to different programs, there's a tendency to want to micromanage individual contracts. A single point of accountability needs to have the responsibility for t

National Defence committee  First of all, we need to understand the industry in Canada. It isn't a huge shipbuilding and defence industry. Most of the companies involved in the industry have worked together at some point in the past, or work together presently, or are likely to work together in the future.

National Defence committee  There's a lot of detail we could go into around roles and responsibilities, but I think, fundamentally, the government is responsible for setting the requirements and the strategic direction of what we're doing. Decisions on the requirements, what they want out of these contracts

National Defence committee  I think that's absolutely right. In a perfect world, the procurement strategy would have been announced several years before it was, and we would be moving forward. However, we are where we are, and that's what we're working towards.

National Defence committee  Can I expand on that? A study we had done by PricewaterhouseCoopers looked at the economic benefits of shipbuilding in Canada. One of their conclusions was that for every billion dollars spent in Canada on shipbuilding, Canada receives $1.8 billion's worth of value in return thro

National Defence committee  I would just add that the strategy was well devised. It looked at the capability required and determined it needed two centres of excellence based on the number of ships the navy has requirements for. Unless that requirement has changed dramatically, the answer is already there,

National Defence committee  Thank you for the question. On the Canadian construction program, as I think you're aware, we did, along with Canada, considerable industry engagement. We worked very closely with the regional development agencies to look at the capabilities that existed in Canada in the contex

National Defence committee  I think it's all about balance. You raise a very good point: Canadian content and economic benefits are incredibly important. Also incredibly important is delivering a very capable ship to the navy. Also incredibly important is delivering good-value ships with a low-risk profil