Thank you very much.
I want to reiterate a point, because I can't make it enough. We're heading into a new security environment that is increasingly going to put pressures on Canadian maritime security. This maritime security, of course, faces a threat from the ongoing battles that we see occurring in the Ukrainian war but also in terms of the Asia-Pacific region, which is increasingly going to become an area of conflict. As a result, we need to ensure that we have as nimble and as capable a procurement for naval capabilities as possible.
The second point I would like to make once again reflects what we talked about in the first session. We have an almost perverse desire to focus on platforms rather than understanding that what we need to have, in terms of responding to the development of Chinese and Russian naval threats that are now developing, is a system of systems. We can't simply talk about the development of an AOPS, a submarine or a surface combatant. We have to talk about what this ultimately gives us in effect and the ability to fight, as the future environment will obviously put pressure on us.
In terms of the types of challenges that we face concerning how we meet this future threat, we of course had a very good start with what was the Canadian shipbuilding strategy, in an effort to try to introduce a certain rationality in terms of how we approach these particular issues.
One would dare say that, once again, we are seeing a certain element of politicization as the issue of whether or not we should have two yards or three yards has arisen, but we've also seen other types of difficulties, where we are only focused on what the costs and cost difficulties are, rather than asking how we are able to fight, how we are able to resupply and how are we able to repair.
I will end my comments by saying that it is a good start to see the AOPS actually coming into operation. I will be happier when we start seeing actual construction on the future surface combatant so that they're actual surface combatants. We are going to have to address the issue of submarines sooner rather than later.
Thank you very much.