Government Operations committee  The costing that was done by National Defence in preparation for “Strong, Secure, Engaged” does account for uncertainty, not knowing yet which design is to be selected, and also the fact that some of these designs, even independent—

Government Operations committee  All right. I'll stop here; otherwise my microphone will be disconnected.

Government Operations committee  Every time a decision like this is made, there is a business case that is done by the navy and the Department of National Defence, if it's about navy capability, or by the Coast Guard. What goes into these business cases is obviously the costs that are available on the open marke

Government Operations committee  Again, having been in the business for several decades and having successfully delivered many projects, I will say that every day we work in this business.... There are hundreds, thousands of projects nobody hears about that are delivered successfully. What I was trying to say i

Government Operations committee  We are in conversations with Seaspan on a weekly basis. Again, we want to go back to the umbrella agreement that we have signed with Seaspan, which does include the Diefenbaker, or the polar icebreaker, as we call it. It is part of a program of work that the Coast Guard is planni

Government Operations committee  No. Again, we have a signed agreement. I just want to go back to the cost, if I may.

Government Operations committee  There's one issue of costing, the precision of costing, but there's also another issue, the issue of affordability, which we constantly have. Those are two things. First of all, you have to have the discipline, the mechanisms and the processes to come to the appropriate costing,

Government Operations committee  What I was saying is that under the national shipbuilding strategy approved eight years ago, in 2010, contracts have been awarded to the tune of about $8.8 billion since then. I talked specifically about the estimation of costs and schedules that took place in preparation for the

Government Operations committee  I think you can never say never in this business. When we talk about the complexity and size of a project such as the Canadian surface combatant project, I don't think that anyone I've ever met, working internationally or in Canada, can actually predict all of the risks that will

Government Operations committee  Let me add that the premise for the national shipbuilding strategy was to give the shipyards involved in large ship construction a program of work over several decades, so that they could actually make the investments, become world-class, and then deliver ships under it. Part o

Government Operations committee  The NSS program is constantly.... I would say that this is the kind of conversation we have every day about how we deliver the ships that are part of the program. I think it's fair to say that in the last eight years, since the program was announced and the contracts were awarde

Government Operations committee  Yes, SSE, “Strong, Secure, Engaged”, is a challenge for all departments involved. We are working on some improvements to streamline defence procurement. One of the significant initiatives we have undertaken is to move, for example, authorities for ministers and departments to awa

Government Operations committee  We're aware of that, and—

Government Operations committee  No, he is presenting facts as they are, and—

Government Operations committee  What is also important to note is that when we do the procurement for large defence contracts, we invoke what we call industrial and technological benefits, which require suppliers to invest the equivalent amount of the contract into Canadian industry, so that we see a lot of wor