CAF ‘death spiral’ leaves us vulnerable
Outsourcing of pilot training latest debacle
The life cycle of military planes can be estimated from Day 1. So it’s a head-scratcher that the training aircraft for Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) fighter pilots have reached the end of their useful lives, with no replacement on the way. If you’re even remotely familiar with the Canadian Armed Forces, this failure to prepare is exactly what should be expected.
The RCAF communications department will assure you that this is all a good thing. “The Royal Canadian Air Force is reaffirming its presence at a major multinational jet pilot training school and placing its fighter lead-in training squadron on hiatus,” reads the first line of a recent CAF newsletter.
The retiring plane is the CT-155 Hawk, which is what pilots fly before they graduate to the CF-18. It has been in use for 24 years. Since Canada is, eventually, upgrading its fighter fleet to F-35s, the olderstyle Hawk has become outdated. But Canada is not ready for the switch. So it is halting its domestic fighter training program until a suitable plane is secured, and will conduct this work in the United States, Finland and Italy in the meantime.
It took many, many years for Canada to finally pull the trigger on upgrading to the F-35. There was an attempt under former prime minister Stephen Harper, but Prime Minister Justin Trudeau rejected the idea, claiming that Canada did not need the F-35’s “stealth first-strike capability.” In January 2023, however, he changed his mind and queued up for 88 of the jets, costing $70 billion in total, which will allow Canada to retire our aging fleet of CF18S for good in 2032.
The road to upgrade the fighters took incredibly long, leading to inflated costs. The benefit of all that time, though, is that it affords room to prepare. One would think that during the decade of F-35 fence-sitting, or even the past year since the purchase was finalized, someone at the Department of National Defence could have figured out the plan to acquire complementary training planes. Alas, no.
This is a symptom of the CAF’S deeper problems when it comes to personnel. About 10 per cent of roles in the already-small force are vacant. In the procurement department, 30 per cent of roles aren’t filled. As it turns out, lining up replacement equipment becomes kind of difficult when there’s not enough people to do the job.
“Over the past three years, more people have left than have entered,” said Defence Minister Bill Blair last week at a conference in Ottawa. “Frankly, it’s a death spiral.”
All of the CAF’S recruiting roles have been filled, Gen. Wayne Eyre told Parliament in 2022, but to little avail. Standards for recruits are be lowered every year, as well. Long nails, hair dye and face tattoos were permitted in 2022. More recently, the CAF has begun excusing some applicants from aptitude tests to cut down on processing time, and is expanding recruiting to those with medical conditions.
The lowered standards may not have a negative impact on the CAF in the short term. Then again, there wouldn’t be — the Canadian military isn’t usually in life-anddeath
situations where these requirements would matter in the first place.
It’s hardly a surprise that people aren’t leaping at the chance to work for a military that doesn’t have enough equipment to run, that has about 35 per cent of its membership reporting that they have insufficient equipment to properly do their jobs and that insists on promoting divisive identity politics among its ranks.
Nor is it surprising that people don’t want to enter an emaciated organization that’s facing looming budget cuts (which the generals can’t call “cuts” — government orders), and has already dealt housing allowance cuts to members (the latter were rolled into smaller housing subsidies for lower-ranking members, leaving older members out to dry).
It’s a case of system-wide dysfunction. And now, we can’t even train our own fighter pilots at home.
The CAF’S inability to plan for Hawk replacements doesn’t bode well for the rest of the equipment that has been shuffled out the door in recent years. The outbreak of war in Ukraine provided an opportunity for the CAF to modernize as old equipment was sent to our ally. But that doesn’t seem to have been the case.
Maj.-gen. Rob Dundon, a higher-up in the Department of National Defence’s equipment program, told an industry magazine in December that the equipment needed to replace what was sent to Ukraine was “significant.” So far, about $220 million worth.
This includes howitzer artillery, ammunition, guns and Leopard tanks. Just buy more, right? But the military can’t do that. Dundon said the company that makes Canada’s howitzers won’t be manufacturing any more until 2028. And as for the Leopard tanks, his department is still “waiting for a CAF strategy decision on which way they want us to execute.”
The government has sent eight tanks to Ukraine since the start of the war, and still doesn’t have a plan to replace them. Canada’s ammunition supply would last only three days in the event of war (not 30, as required by NATO), but Blair has “been working on what have been challenges in acquiring” it. Once again, no apparent plan.
As for our fighter pilots, who knows when they’ll be coming back to train in Canada. If only defence officials didn’t take years to solve a problem.