Government Operations committee  It's a really good question. I can point to certain things that I know about, but as I said earlier, part of the real problem to me is lack of transparency. The NSS is supposed to be an open book. Where is this book? Who's allowed to open it? Who's allowed to analyze what's going

Government Operations committee  The navy needs ships. The navy needs ships that are first-class fighting ships. They need to be able to afford enough of them to have a meaningful fleet. The Type 26, which is the basis for CSC, may be an excellent ship; I'm actually not sure. There are concerns that have been r

Government Operations committee  No. It doesn't seem to be public. A number that was mentioned in the testimony earlier this week was $1.5 billion for the two ships. Frankly, that's an astonishing number.

Government Operations committee  There's nothing exactly like the AOPS, but I think another ship that was mentioned in earlier testimony is Le Commandant Charcot, which was built at the Vard shipyards in Romania and Norway. This is a polar class 2 icebreaker. It's almost exactly the same size and power as the Jo

Government Operations committee  Well, on COVID, I really have to accept a lot of what was said by our witnesses here today. You have to be aware of the differences in a place like Nova Scotia compared to a place like Norway, which actually did a much better job of controlling COVID without shutting down as much

Government Operations committee  One of my mentors told me at a very early stage that when you're in a hole, stop digging. It's never too late. What are we cancelling at this stage? As John Schmidt said earlier, when we were this amount of time into the frigate program in the 1980s, we were getting ships. We s

Government Operations committee  Obviously, this is hearsay, because they have never declared that very publicly. Having worked with both the navy and the Coast Guard, I believe that to be the case. If the navy had wanted them, they'd have taken them. They would have taken ships seven and eight, rather than maki

Government Operations committee  This is another interesting aspect. If you are forced to compete on price, if you're forced to meet a price, then you accept risk. Another thing the shipyards have been doing is transferring as much risk as possible to their suppliers and contractors. They're not making a balanc

Government Operations committee  Thank you very much, Madame Vignola. Yes, I would like to emphasize that I am not against any sector of the Canadian marine industry, whether that be the designers, the builders or the equipment suppliers. I have been a firm supporter of that throughout my career in Canada, and

Government Operations committee  Again, it's a difficult question. I was not involved in that unsolicited proposal, though I was associated with the group that was involved in making it. My opinion is that they could not possibly have delivered at a European price under the current system. Canada's shipyards ar

Government Operations committee  This is the $64-billion question. Unfortunately, I don't have a simple answer for it, partly because neither I nor anybody on this committee or anybody else seems to have a real handle on what is happening. The project's process was supposed to be fair, open and transparent. It's

Government Operations committee  Mr. Chair, thank you. Committee members, thanks for this opportunity to testify. I'll introduce myself and my reasons for being here today. I am a naval architect who emigrated to Canada in 1981. Since then, I have worked on every major Canadian government marine project, and o