Liberals loitering on controversial jet purchase

Amid claims that new Super Hornet fighter jets are urgently needed to stave off a 9/11-type of attack on Canada, the federal government admits it has no idea when it will start negotiations to buy the planes or when they will arrive.

But there are increasing questions over whether Canada is truly facing a capability gap after the head of the Air Force said the issue was created by the Liberal government’s rejigging of defence policy.

Lt.-Gen. Mike Hood said he wasn’t privy to why the policy changed.

The Liberal government will buy 18 Super Hornet jets as an interim measure, claiming the country has a lack of fighter planes.

Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan repeated Tuesday in the Commons that the jets were needed to deal with a capability gap to provide for the air defence of North America, meet NATO commitments and conduct other military operations.

Sajjan and Chief of the Defence Staff Gen. Jon Vance have raised the spectre of the military not having enough planes to deal with a terrorist attack.

But Hood said the gap was created this year when the Liberals changed defence policy, requiring the RCAF to meet both its NATO and North American air defence commitments at the same time.

“That demands a certain number of aircraft that our present CF-18 fleet is unable to meet on its day-to-day serviceability rate,” Hood told senators on Monday. “They’ve (the Liberals) changed the policy of the number of aircraft I have to have.”

Sajjan said in the Commons that the government “will not risk-manage this gap.”

“We’re going to make sure that we have enough aircraft to do this and that’s what our (Super Hornet) announcement was about,” he said.

But the federal government does not appear to be moving quickly to solve the gap.

In response to a question from Postmedia, Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC) could not say when it expects the Super Hornets to arrive nor when it will begin negotiations.