Liberals should put the military first

In recent months, the federal Liberals have occasionally shown an admirable willingness to change course when the facts demand it. The government’s response so far to the unexpected election of President Donald J. Trump has shown skill and even some i magination. The government’s choice to abandon their electoralreform scheme was also a welcome, albeit belated (and dishonourably handled) reversal.

But there’s one file where the Liberals are foolishly sticking to their guns: Their bizarre intention of purchase a reported 18 Boeing F-18 Super Hornet jets as an “interim” measure to bolster the Royal Canadian Air Force’s fighter fleet. We agree with the Liberals that our air fleet is too small — we’ve been saying so for years. And the F-18 Super Hornet is certainly a credible, effective warplane. But the entire concept of an interim purchase is flawed, and continues a long Liberal tradition of placing the party’s partisan political interests above the country’s, and specifically the military’s. It is outrageous, but it is no longer surprising.

The problem is that a multi-billion-dollar addition of some new F-18s doesn’t actually address the real problem, which is that the rest of Canada’s fleet is aging to the point of requiring replacement. The CF-18s operated by Canada today have been extensively retrofitted over the years and remain capable of doing the jobs likely to be assigned to them. But there’s only so much that new weapons and avionics gear can do. The CF-18s were built in the early 1980s, and are high performance aircraft, designed to aggressively manoeuvre at tremendous speed. Over time, that stresses the very frame of the aircraft, rendering them gradually less capable of safely executing their dangerous missions.

They must be replaced, and soon. Blowing an estimated $5 to $7 billion on an interim program does nothing to change that. It does consume time, energy and resources, all of which are better invested in simply skipping the interim process altogether and getting on with the final replacement. This should have been done years ago and will only get more expensive if we continue to delay. There is simply no economic or military justification for an interim purchase of Super Hornets or any other jet. And yet the Liberals seem determined, and took further preliminary steps this week. Why?

The answer isn’t economic or military. It’s political. During the last election campaign, the Liberals painted themselves into a corner by making two utterly irreconcilable promises: that they would select Canada’s next- generation fighter by holding an honest, transparent and open competition, and that they would pre- emptively rule out from that competition the costly and long- delayed but advanced F- 35 stealth fighters now finally entering service with the United States and other allies. Once in office and forced to find a way to escape this self-inflicted conundrum, the Liberals seem to have decided that an “interim” fighter order of a jet that is not the F-35 gives the appearance of action without technically breaking either promise.

It’s not an elegant solution, even on paper. The Liberals intend to spend billions of dollars to accomplish nothing but to defer an urgently needed military procurement, one vital to our national security and sovereignty. Perhaps the Liberals are simply buying time before admitting the F- 35 is right for Canada — many experts worry that the Super Hornet is not advanced enough to keep Canada current with its allies, including the U. S., with whom we share the duty of securing North America from air attack. Perhaps they are betting that the public won’t hold this brazenly political manoeuvre at the expense of our armed forces against them, or, more likely, will simply forget the Liberals ever made the contradictory promises in the first place.

In that, sadly, they may be right. Canadians respect their military, but rarely think of it, and are, in general, not particularly informed citizens regarding matters of national defence and security. Canadian governments have long exploited this to get away with underfunding our fighting forces and proving, time and again, that this otherwise great nation is simply incapable of replacing vital military equipment on time and on budget without utterly bungling the entire process ( how are those Sea King replacements coming?).

It would be nice if the Liberals had been prepared to put the long- term security of Canada and the safety of our air crew ahead of their own short- term partisan interests.

But no one with any knowledge of Canadian military history can credibly pretend to be surprised that they aren’t. This is, as those government TV spots would put it, part of our heritage.

ANSWER ISN’T ECONOMIC OR MILITARY. IT’S POLITICAL.