Canada and the F-35 fighter jets saga

by Maj (ret'd) CORNELIU. CHISU, CD, PMSC, FEC, CET, P. Eng. Former Member of Parliament Pickering-Scarborough East Canada has finalized a long-awaited deal to replace its aging fleet of CF-18 fighter jets with 88 of Lockheed Martin's F-35 fighters, set to begin arriving in the coming years as Canada finally signed the contract. This, despite the fact that in 2015 Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his liberal government committed to never buying the F-35 fighter jets. What an about face, and at what exorbitantly inflated expense to Canadian taxpayers! Indeed the deal directly contradicts a 2015 pledge from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau that Canada "will not buy the F-35" after controversial cost estimates forced the previous government to put an earlier F-35 deal on ice. While Canadian governments have been in talks about the F-35 since the late 1990s, the former Conservative government formally announced its intent to buy 65 of the stealth fighter jets in 2010. Deliveries at the time were projected to begin in 2016. However, high costs and concerns about inaccurate budgeting dominated headlines over the subsequent years, and in 2012 the auditor general of the day criticized the handling of the sole-sourced deal. In 2010 the former Conservative government claimed that buying 64 F-35s would cost $9 billion. However, the auditor general report shortly afterwards said that those costs failed to account for the money it would take to keep the fleet running over its entire life cycle. With all of those costs factored in, the auditor general estimated the cost would actually be closer to $44 billion. By the time the 2015 federal election rolled around, then-Liberal leader Justin Trudeau vowed he would not buy the F-35 jets, pledging instead to look into a "more affordable aircraft." Despite that promise, the government did not excluded Lockheed Martin from entering the contest for a replacement fleet - and now, seven years later, Trudeau's government has finalized a deal for the fleet it promised not to purchase in 2015. "This is a decision that probably should have been made a decade ago, maybe even five years ago," said Richard Shimooka, a senior fellow at the Macdonald Laurier Institute. "The delays have been so serious and so long coming that … it's had some serious consequences for Canada's ability to defend itself." Canada's air force has struggled to retain its pilots, and Shimooka said the outdated fleet and everlasting deliberations over a potential replacement did not help this issue. The air force is supposed to have about 1,500 pilots, but was short around 225 at the end of December 2019. According to the Canadian Press, the issue had improved slightly by 2021 - but the air force was still short about 130 pilots. So after several years of delays and dramatic cost increases, the government is now purchasing the F-35 fighter jets. The deal is now $19 billion, but officials said in a technical briefing last week that the cost estimate for the lifecycle of these fighter jets is expected to land around $70 billion. The first aircraft is set to be delivered in 2026, officials said, and the full fleet is expected to reach operational capability between 2032 and 2034. Compare the purchase price at $9 billion versus $19 billion, the maintenance costs at $44 Billion versus 70 billion, and the delivery date of 2016 versus 2026. Now consider the purchase price of replacing its aging fleet of Boeing CF-18 fighter jets in 2017, when the government also said it would buy 25 used jets of the same model from Australia as a bridge toward a longer-term fleet replacement, and you have the whole devastating picture of recklessly misspent taxpayer money. Is anybody being held accountable? "The delay, of course, has impacted quite severely on the Royal Canadian Air Force in terms of recruitment and retention of pilots, fighter aircraft capability, and the world has changed," former defence minister Peter MacKay said recently in an interview with CTV National News Senior Political Correspondent Glen McGregor. Interestingly enough I was in the Defence Committee in the House of Commons during the Harper government's negotiations, and I witnessed first hand the wavering of the government to make the decision to have the contract signed for the F-35 fighter jets. Not signing it was certainly a grave mistake, as the leadership essentially succumbed to uninformed public pressure whipped up by a politically partisan media and the pressure of an imminent election campaign. In today's world, faced with the complexity of defending our long neglected arctic, the ongoing war in Ukraine and the growing tensions in South East Asia with the emerging power of China, we cannot afford future mistakes of this kind. We must have a military capable of defending our country from any foreign threat. We cannot base our defence by proxy on our strong neighbour to the South. What do you think?