New jet-fighter process reportedly intended to prevent favouritism

The Conservative government’s rebooted jet-fighter procurement has been set up as an “options analysis” rather than a full competition to begin with, in order to prevent the Royal Canadian Air Force from again stacking the deck in favour of a single plane, a source familiar with the process says.

“If you simply ask the military to go back and revise the statement of requirements, you have no guarantee that they will not do it again in favour of a particular aircraft,” the source said.

In the wake of the government’s stunning reversal last week of its three-yearold plan to sole-source a purchase of 65 Lockheed-Martin F-35 fighters — a purchase now expected to cost nearly $46 billion over the life of the project — questions have been raised about whether the new process itself is legitimate, or mere windowdressing for a government desperate to restore its credentials for management of the public purse.

Opposition critics have demanded the government forgo the options analysis and go directly to an international competition, based on a new statement of operational requirements (SOR) outlining the role and functions of Canada’s air force, which is now flying aging CF-18s.

However, a revision of the existing statement of requirements would necessarily be carried out by the RCAF, sources say, as they are the only ones with the expertise to do this work.

At the same time, the existing SOR is based on an options analysis, dating back to 2007-08, that was done without proper due diligence, according to Auditor General Michael Ferguson’s audit of the F-35 program last spring.

In July of 2010, the Conservative government announced with great fanfare that Canada had selected the F-35 as the air force’s next fighter. Virtually since that day, the program has been an albatross around the government’s neck and fodder for the opposition.

The thinking among program planners now is that, by having the military start from scratch, they can ensure an impartial approach.

Contenders for the contract are expected to be Boeing’s Super Hornet, Dassault’s Rafale, Saab’s Gripen, the Eurofighter Typhoon, and Lockheed-Martin’s F-35.