Thank you for the question, Mr. Chair.
As I said at the outset, it had been 30 years since Canada had built ships, so the yards had to upgrade their infrastructure at their own cost, and government, both PSPC and client departments, had to grow and build internal expertise. We have a really impressive workforce that specializes in complex procurement.
Complex procurement in the marine context, especially where you're trying to avoid boom and bust, and this is an important principle, is really what's at the heart of a national shipbuilding strategy, trying to ensure continuity of work, the efficiencies, and implementation over time of the learnings you achieve. That means you have a robust supply chain and you have a strong industrial base. A lot of it is situated in Canada, and much of it you're also sourcing from around the world for value reasons.
What's interesting is that we've seen that capacity grow more and more and we're actually now having other countries come to learn from us. They now know we've been at this for a couple of years. They're asking about our challenges and opportunities.
Perhaps it could have been better explained at the outset that there would be a period of growth and learning, and that needed to be communicated: here are the challenges when you're building from scratch; here are the challenges of recruiting, training, and hiring professionals who do this work; here is the marine context; here is how it operates; and the reality of having to buy long-lead items before a ship is even built so that you have it in time to have continuous production processes in the yard.