Government Operations committee  The Constellation class doesn't play into this estimate. We took a similar approach to what the Congressional Budget Office used to estimate the Constellation class, so we used the same base data they did, but that's the FREMM, not the Constellation class.

Government Operations committee  When we started the latest research for this report, we requested the information from DND regarding whether there had been any changes in terms of the design, the weight or anything like that. The answer was that, no, it is still using the same planning assumptions as we had in

Government Operations committee  It was certainly by 2020, although I suspect it's possible that DND has internal figures that are just not official yet.

Government Operations committee  Not the life-cycle costs, no. Just the development and acquisition phase costs.

Government Operations committee  Actually, I can speak to the current estimated operating costs for the Halifax-class fleet. It's between $800 million and $1 billion. When we say $3.8 billion, that's incremental. It would be the difference between the two.

Government Operations committee  Roughly, yes.

Government Operations committee  Yes. All of the salaries of military personnel are included in the ops and sustainment phase.

Government Operations committee  With regard to operations and sustainment costs, and in particular maintenance, there are three lines of maintenance: on board, alongside and depot level. This docking period refers to the depot level maintenance. Those costs are calculated for the entirety of its life cycle and

Government Operations committee  We can only speculate. We certainly had discussions with officials from National Defence, but I wouldn't say that we're at liberty to discuss what they told us. I think probably National Defence is best suited to give you that answer. Thank you.

Government Operations committee  It's very country-dependent, based on my experience. If we look at the United States, usually the development phase would last between five and seven years for a surface combatant. Then, of course, there is acquisition. It depends on how long the production run is.

Government Operations committee  I'm sorry, but I'm going to answer in English. National Defence officials we spoke to said we would have to start a new procurement program pretty much from the time these ships entered the water, in order to assure there is no further gap.

Government Operations committee  In principle, yes, but that would be under another program. So it's not part of our estimate.

Government Operations committee  We won't, until we have a breakdown of how the figures are spread out among those categories for the $4.9 billion.

Government Operations committee  I can certainly speak to that. It's higher than it has been at any point since 2000. There were some decreases in defence spending during the nineties, with the end of the Cold War, so it's safe to say that in the last 30 years, we're at a higher level, let's say, than at any p

Government Operations committee  I don't recall offhand if there's been this rapid an increase. However, again, our numbers are predicated on National Defence being able to spend according to their capital investment plan under “Strong, Secure, Engaged”.