Canada eyes 18 fighter jets
Feds look to Super Hornets as ‘interim’ fix before search for nation’s next fighter plane
OTTAWA— The Liberal government wants to buy 18 Super Hornets in a sole-source contract as an emergency stopgap for Canada’s air force as it embarks on a lengthy new search for the next fighter jet.
That new search — already coming after prolonged study and review — will stretch five years, federal cabinet ministers say, prompting the need for an interim fix to bolster the fleet of decades-old CF-18s.
“We’re going to start immediately having discussions with Boeing. We need to get the interim fleet in place as quickly as possible,” Judy Foote, minister of public services and procurement, said Tuesday.
Foote joined Harjit Sajjan, the defence minister; Navdeep Bains, minister of innovation, science and economic development; and Gen. Jonathan Vance, the chief of defence staff, at an Ottawa news conference to lay out the government’s next steps in the search for a new fighter jet.
They detailed a three-step process to rejuvenate the fighter fleet: the interim purchase of Super Hornets, bolstering depleted staff ranks in the air force and launching an “open and transparent” competition for a permanent replacement for the CF-18.
They painted the situation as urgent, claiming that the Royal Canadian Air Force is already unable to meet commitments to North Atlantic Treaty Organization and North American Aerospace Defence Command because of the state of the current fleet.
“There are a number of missions and training events that are not possible to achieve at the same time . . . There are days where we don’t have enough aircraft to do one of the missions,” Vance told reporters.
Foote made clear that the Super Hornet — a larger, heavier and upgraded version of the CF-18 — is Canada’s favoured choice. But she refused to say how much Canada may have to pay for the jets.
The decision also means that the government will have to spend tens of millions of dollars more on upgrades necessary to keep Canada’s old fighters safely in the air until the late 2020s. But even then, federal officials say interim jets are needed as an insurance policy.
Tuesday’s announcements betray one Liberal campaign promise — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s vow not to buy the Lockheed Martin F-35 jet — and undermines another, namely the commitment to go with a less-costly fighter to free up “tens of billions of dollars” for investment in the navy.
Foote said Tuesday it would be an “open” competition, suggesting that F-35 maker Lockheed Martin would be allowed to bid.
And it wasn’t clear how much Ottawa would be spending on fighter jets. Ministers refused to discuss how many jets would be purchased as the permanent replacement, saying that decision would await the outcome of the defence policy review underway.
But the government’s move to go with the Super Hornet drew criticism Tuesday.
Conservative MP James Bezan accused the government of “wasting” billions of dollars and in the interim, saddling the air force with the wrong jet.