Dassault & Rafale Withdraw from CF-18 Replacement

By: Lee Berthiaume, The Canadian Press 

OTTAWA — The long effort to replace Canada’s ageing fighter jets took another surprise twist on Tuesday, as multiple sources revealed that French fighter-jet maker Dassault is pulling out of the multibillion-dollar competition.

Three newly delivered Rafale aircraft to the Egyptian Air Force (2017) 

The decision comes just over a week after the federal government published the military’s requirements for a replacement for Canada’s CF-18s as well as a draft process by which a winning supplier will be chosen.

Dassault had repeatedly pitched its Rafale aircraft to Canada over the years as successive governments in Ottawa have wrestled with selecting a new fighter jet. Dassault’s pitch included significant promises, including that it would assemble the planes in Canada.

But sources tell The Canadian Press that Dassault’s decision to withdraw was related to the fact France is not a member of the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing network, which counts the U.S., Britain, Australia, New Zealand and Canada as members. The five members have very specific requirements for how their equipment works together.

The French government, which had been closely working with Dassault as the most recent iteration of Canada’s fighter-replacement program has inched along over the past year, was preparing to notify Ottawa of the company’s withdrawal.

The move leaves four companies — U.S. aerospace giants Lockheed Martin and Boeing, European competitor Airbus and Swedish firm Saab — competing for the $19-billion contract to replace Canada’s 76 CF-18s with 88 new fighters.

A contract isn’t expected to be awarded until 2021 or 2022, with delivery of the first new aircraft slated for 2025. In the meantime, the government is planning to upgrade its CF-18s and buy 25 used fighters from Australia as a stopgap.

Dassault faced several significant challenges in meeting Canada’s requirements for a new fighter, said defence analyst David Perry of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute, and while they weren’t insurmountable, they would have cost time and money.

Those challenges included meeting those Five-Eyes intelligence-sharing requirements, which Perry said put Dassault at a distinct disadvantage in the competition when compared to Lockheed Martin, Boeing and, to a certain degree, Airbus.

“For any of the non-American companies, solving the Five-Eyes interoperability issues is going to be challenging,” he said, noting that the U.S. in particular is very sensitive about data-sharing.

“And it costs companies a lot of money to mount and pursue bids. So if they think at this point in time that it’s not a realistic prospect, then pulling out is pretty understandable.”

That could explain why Dassault never established a strong presence in Canada during the many years when it was trying to sell the Rafale as a replacement for the CF-18, he added.

The CF-18s are about 35 years old. Canada’s attempts to buy a new fighter jet have dragged on for nearly a decade after the previous Conservative government announced in 2010 that Canada would buy 65 F-35s without a competition, with the first to be delivered in 2015.

But the Tories pushed the reset button in 2012 after the auditor general raised questions about the program and National Defence revealed the jets would cost $46 billion over their lifetimes.

After campaigning on a promise not to buy the F-35s, the Trudeau Liberals announced in November 2016 they would take their time with a competition to replace the CF-18s, and buy 18 “interim” Boeing Super Hornets without a competition because Canada needed more fighter jets badly.

But then Boeing’s trade dispute with Canadian rival Bombardier saw the Liberals scrap their plan to buy Super Hornets and instead begin talks to buy 18 used fighter jets from Australia. A contract for those used planes is expected in the coming weeks.

The formal competition to replace the CF-18s is scheduled to begin next spring.

RCAF Fighter Replacement Reaching New Depths

By: David Bercuson

The government’s initiative to replace Canada’s long-serving CF-18s with a new jet fighter (88 of them according to the June defence policy paper) is reaching new depths of hilarity.

Canadian governments have known for almost two decades that the day of the CF-18 is almost over. Stalwart aircraft, the fighter jets have been updated at least twice – but there is only so much that can be done with an obsolete airframe, and it is time for Canada to join virtually all its allies in updating to a new and much more modern jet.

But Prime Minister Trudeau declared during his election campaign that Canada would never, ever buy the Lockheed-Martin F-35 Joint Strike Fighter – a solemn election declaration based on zero facts – and he is now in a very delicate situation.

Sometime last year, the government suddenly decided that the current CF-18 fleet (which was supposed to last at least another five years after its last update) was no longer viable, and that the air force needed a quick “gap filler” to fulfill Canada’s NORAD commitments between now and whenever the government actually decides which aircraft it will pick for a wholesale replacement of the CF-18. And when would that be? Why, after the next election, of course, when the Trudeau pledge would be forgotten and Canada could follow virtually every one of its major allies – especially the United States – and purchase the F-35.

Why wait until after the next election? In truth, there is no reason under the sun to take up to four years (the Liberal proposal) to hold a fighter competition. First of all, the F-35 is the only fighter aircraft (aside from the very advanced F-22, which is unavailable for export) the U.S. will be flying for at least the next three decades. Second, there have been at least a dozen countries that have picked the F-35 in their own competitions, and third, because almost all of Canada’s allies have selected the F-35 already.

In any case, what to do about filling the "gap" that the government suddenly decided exists between our CF-18s and the next fighter? Initially the government decided early this year to buy 18 Boeing F-18 Super Hornets. These fighters are somewhat larger and more capable than their CF-18 predecessors, and are flown almost exclusively by the U.S. Navy and by Australia. The Aussies bought them to fill a gap between their old F-18s and their new F-35s which will soon be delivered. Israel and Japan are, right now, taking delivery of their F-35s and other countries will soon begin to receive theirs.

Not long after the Liberal government announced it was going to acquire the Super Hornets, Boeing brought a case to the United States trade commissioner complaining that the new Bombardier single-aisle jetliner was being “dumped” in the United States at artificially low prices. Ottawa took umbrage and has, at least for now, quashed its deal with Boeing.

How then to “fill the gap”? Last week Canada sent representatives to Australia to check out the Royal Australian Air Force’s fire sale of its old F-18s because the Aussies are about to take delivery of their new F-35s. So, Canada is ready to lay cash on the line in “Hairy Harry’s Hornet sale” to buy airplanes to “fill the gap” that are as old as the fighters we are flying now. They can probably buy a few hundred bins of spare parts while they are at it. Maybe we will rummage around some Australian airfields to pick the best old set of wings here and the best old engine there so that we can make one flyable plane out three or four old ones that are not so flyable.

The whole situation has become a vast tragicomedy of errors, and it's beginning to look as silly as the decades-long effort (now finally coming to a conclusion) to replace the 1960s era Sea Kings. All because of a partisan political announcement by a man aspiring to become prime minister who knew nothing about the issues.

Canadian Firms prod Trudeau to approve Super Hornet deal

By: Daniel Leblanc, The Globe and Mail 

Ten Canadian-based aerospace companies are calling on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to stop blocking the purchase of 18 Super Hornet fighter jets, arguing they stand to suffer from the government's unwavering support of Bombardier Inc. in a trade dispute with Boeing Co.

"Prime Minister, we ask for your co-operation as we work with Boeing to keep our collective growth and innovation story unfolding here in Canada. Our partnership is deep and enduring, but it needs your engagement," said the letter sent on Tuesday by senior executives from firms such as Héroux-Devtek, L-3 MAS, CAE and GE Canada.

The letter, which calls on the government to advance "aerospace for all of Canada," is the most recent development in an increasingly bitter dispute between the Canadian government and Boeing. Ottawa is holding the Super Hornet contract as its main bargaining chip in its fight on behalf of Quebec-based Bombardier, while members of the "Boeing team in Canada" want to convince the government that its strategy will actually hurt Canada's aerospace industry as a whole.


Read more: Ottawa seeks second-hand jets from Australia amid Boeing, Bombardier dispute

"There is a bright opportunity in front of us that can be harvested, in a successful and mutually beneficial win for Canada, our Canadian companies, and Boeing," said the letter sent to Mr. Trudeau, his two key aides, Katie Telford and Gerald Butts, and five federal ministers.


At the heart of the dispute is Boeing's complaint against Bombardier over allegations of illegal subsidies and dumping that was filed in April with the U.S. Department of Commerce. The matter is currently in front of the U.S. International Trade Commission, with Boeing asking for tariffs to be imposed on Bombardier C Series planes sold in the United States.

Ottawa responded by lambasting Boeing for its actions against Bombardier, which is seen in the Liberal government as the crown jewel of Canada's aerospace industry, quickly putting the Super Hornet deal on hold.

A Canadian delegation recently travelled to Australia to see whether second-hand fighter jets, which are being placed on the market by the country's military, could instead fit Canada's needs for an "interim" fleet.

"Australia has flown a very similar F-18 to ours, it is one of the reasons why we have sent a team down to take a look at various options," Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan told reporters at a caucus meeting in Kelowna. "Our engineers will take a look at all the specs to make sure the airframe is worthy enough, making sure we look at the systems that are also employed. ... They will provide an assessment in short order."

Mr. Trudeau has himself sought to put pressure on Boeing to drop its complaint against Bombardier. On Tuesday, Mr. Trudeau called Eric Greitens, the Governor of Missouri, where Super Hornets are assembled, to highlight the billions of dollars and thousands of jobs that are now in play.



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"Canada is reviewing current military procurement that relates to Boeing, as Boeing is pursuing unfair and aggressive trade action against the Canadian aerospace sector. Meanwhile, Boeing receives billions in support from U.S. federal, state and municipal governments," the Prime Minister's Office said on Tuesday.

Still, the president of Boeing International has told Canadian media that Boeing will not back down in its fight against unfair subsidies.

"We recognize the Canadian government might be upset with us. We don't intend to upset anybody, but we plainly have to do what we believe is right," Boeing International president Marc Allen told The Globe and Mail.

Mr. Allen urged the federal government to stop making a link between Boeing's case against Bombardier and the Super Hornet contract. "If you ask me my opinion, I wouldn't want the U.S. government trading national security for trade," he said.

Mr. Allen added the federal government should not forget that Boeing does $4-billion a year of business in Canada, with 560 suppliers and an overall impact of 17,000 jobs.

Bombardier has denied any wrongdoing and is currently defending itself in front of the U.S. International Trade Commission.


"The bottom line is that Boeing's petition is meritless and based on false assumptions, citing a campaign in which they didn't even compete," Bombardier Commercial Aircraft spokesman Bryan Tucker said. "Boeing's petition is a direct attack on innovation, competition, development and jobs on both sides of the border."

RCAF Looking at Australian F-18s as Alternative to Super Hornets

By: Lee Berthiaume, The Canadian Press

OTTAWA — It once appeared the Liberal government would almost certainly buy Super Hornet fighter jets from U.S. aerospace giant Boeing Co. — but it's now clear that other options are on the table.

Aside from the Super Hornets, the government are also pondering used jets and could even end up extending the lives of Canada's CF-18s as its dispute with Boeing continues to escalate.

Speaking to reporters in Kelowna, B.C., where Liberal MPs are meeting before the return of Parliament, Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan said the government is actively looking at alternatives to the Super Hornets as an interim fighter.

"We had identified that the Super Hornets could potentially fill that gap, but ... Boeing has not been a partner, especially when it comes to dealing with our aerospace sector," Sajjan said Wednesday.

"So we are looking at other options."

Those alternatives include deploying a team of defence officials in the past few weeks to look at some of Australia's used F/A-18s, which the country is selling as it prepares to receive new F-35 stealth fighters.

Several retired air force officers say the F/A-18 is very similar to Canada's CF-18s, and buying the used planes from Australia would be much more cost effective than new Super Hornets.

"It's a far better idea than buying Super Hornets because you're at least conceptually using the same airframe," said former chief of defence staff Tom Lawson.

"If they are interested in addressing the short-term capability gap, then they may want to consider that, and it's a far, far better plan, far less expensive and far less interruptive than purchasing Super Hornets."

But Australia isn't the only option if the government is looking to strengthen Canada's CF-18 fleet on a temporary basis until they can be replaced in a full competition.

Kuwait is also looking to sell its used F/A-18s in favour of Super Hornets, while several allies will be getting rid of used F-16s and other fighter aircraft in the coming years as they are replaced by F-35s.

National Defence said officials have not visited any other countries, but it would not say whether there have been discussions about the availability of used aircraft.

Some experts have also suggested that with the U.S. Navy looking to keep many of its own F/A-18s flying past 2025, it might be time for Canada to consider extending the lives of its CF-18s again.

Officials have previously considered the option, but it was deemed too expensive because of the expected difficulty in finding parts — which would be less of a problem if the U.S. kept its jets flying.

Lisa Campbell, head of military procurement at Public Services and Procurement Canada, would not comment on specific options being considered.

"You can make sure we do our due diligence," she said in an interview. "We really do. We and the Department of National Defence. These are major purchases. They have big implications."

The Liberal government has not officially walked away from its plan to purchase interim Super Hornets, which it announced last November amid claims Canada didn't have enough fighter jets.

Campbell said officials are still waiting for the U.S. to say when the Super Hornets could be delivered, and at what cost.

The information was requested in March, and expected by the beginning of September, but it still hasn't materialized.

"We had submitted something that said: 'Here's the capability that we need, here's when we need it, here's the cost that we need it,'" Campbell said.

"We do expect a response back from them ... and we do expect that in the next couple of weeks."

Many defence insiders and industry representatives have circled Sept. 25 on their calendars as the make-or-break moment for interim Super Hornets.

That is when the U.S. Commerce Department will present the findings of its investigation — prompted by a complaint from Boeing — into whether Bombardier sold its CSeries passenger jets at an unfairly low price with help from federal subsidies.

An adverse finding could result in fines or tariffs being imposed on Bombardier, but could also prompt the Liberal government, which has criticized the investigation, to pull the plug on any deal with Boeing.

Boeing has said it won't drop its complaint to the U.S. Commerce Department because the case is important to its long-term prosperity.

During a frank phone call Tuesday with the governor of Missouri, where the Super Hornets are built, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau in turn accused Boeing of receiving billions in subsidies.

Trudeau also noted of the number of Missouri jobs that depend on the jets, and the fact Canada is the state's largest trading partner.

Ottawa suspends talks with Boeing over Super Hornet jet purchase

By: STEVEN CHASE AND NICOLAS VAN PRAET The Globe and Mail

The Trudeau government has suspended negotiations with Boeing Co. to purchase fighter planes as it continues to play hardball with the Chicago company over a U.S. trade complaint the firm lodged against Montreal aircraft maker Bombardier Inc.

Steven MacKinnon, parliamentary secretary to Public Services and Procurement Minister Judy Foote, announced Thursday that Canada has paused talks with Boeing as the dispute shows no signs of winding down.

The Liberals have long planned to buy 18 Boeing Super Hornet jet fighters to fill what they say is a gap in Royal Canadian Air Force capabilities while Ottawa deliberates on a longer-term plan to replace this country's aging CF-18 warplanes.

"We have a capability gap, we outlined a process, our partner in that process is not acting like a valued partner right now, so we've suspended discussions with that partner," Mr. MacKinnon told reporters after a speech at the CANSEC arms fair in Ottawa, sponsored by the Canadian Association of Defence and Security Industries.

There have been no meetings between the Trudeau Liberals and Boeing since the company first threatened to jettison the contract, a person familiar with the matter told The Globe and Mail.

Scott Day, a spokesman for Boeing, said direct communication is important but the company would not necessarily be communicating regularly with the Canadian government on the Super Hornet purchase in any case because it is a government-to-government transaction.

"There are different avenues to get to a foreign military sale," Mr. Day said. "Sometimes, the contractor is involved in those sale purchases and sometimes they're not."

Mr. Day said Boeing continues to work with the U.S. Navy, its American government partner, on concluding the sale to Canada. "We've not been told to stop producing materials for the Navy," Mr. Day said. "We're happy to answer questions when the government of Canada has them for us."

News of the impasse comes one day after Canada's Defence Minister doubled down on Ottawa's threat to jettison the multibillion-dollar purchase if Boeing doesn't withdraw a complaint with U.S. trade regulators that could lead to duties being slapped on Bombardier planes. Harjit Sajjan suggested in a speech Wednesday that Boeing – which has benefited from billions of dollars of sales to Canada over the decades – is not behaving like a "trusted partner" of Canada .

On Thursday, Boeing cancelled an announcement it was going to make about the Super Hornet jets at the arms fair in Ottawa. The plane maker was set to provide details about Canadian-based suppliers benefiting if the contract was finalized, but scrapped the announcement "due to the current climate," it said in a statement. Boeing has roughly 560 aerospace suppliers in Canada and says its commitment to the country remains unwavering.

In May, the U.S. Department of Commerce announced it will investigate accusations from Boeing that sales of Bombardier's new C Series jetliner constitute dumping into the U.S. market at "absurdly low prices," because the plane is subsidized by the Canadian and Quebec governments.

The Department of Commerce and the U.S. International Trade Commission are probing the allegations. A preliminary determination on Boeing's petition is expected by June 12.

In a written response to Mr. Sajjan's speech Wednesday, Boeing offered no indication that it was considering backing down on its trade complaint against Bombardier. The company said its complaint is a commercial matter that it is seeking to address through proper channels.

Canada's initial purchase of these Super Hornets could cost $2-billion, but their maintenance, support and upgrades could cost as much as $10-billion over the full period of their use. That could mean billions of dollars more in parts and support for Boeing beyond the initial capital investment.

Open Letter to the PM from Former RCAF Commanders Re: Super Hornet Purchase

Open Letter to the Prime Minister

From Former Air Force Commanders

Dear Prime Minister,

As former commanders of Canada’s air force, we respectfully but urgently ask that your government not proceed with the plan to purchase a fleet of Super Hornet aircraft as an interim measure pending the eventual replacement of our venerable CF- 18 fighters. It is our firm belief that the interim strategy is ill- advised, costly and unnecessary. Most important, it would significantly impair the Royal Canadian Air Force for years to come and ultimately damage the nation’s defence posture. The situation is complex, but our call for dropping the Super Hornet buy is based on some compelling facts, which we offer for your consideration.

First, we have serious misgivings about the use of a “capability gap” as the basis for your interim plan. Your government’s newly created policy calling for the Royal Canadian Air Force to meet its NATO and NORAD treaty obligations concurrently does not reflect a real and sudden change in the strategic situation. In our experience, it has been decades since Canada had sufficient fighter aircraft to meet all our commitments simultaneously. Over the years the air force, by judiciously balancing strategic risks and available resources, has managed its operational contributions reasonably well. We certainly welcome any initiative that promises to close the longstanding capability gap, but purchasing eighteen Super Hornet aircraft would in fact exacerbate the gap in the near to mid- term by imposing a heavy burden on the RCAF’s existing resources without producing a meaningful increase in fighter availability.

Although the Super Hornet does have some commonality with our current CF- 18s, it is a different airplane, requiring its own training system for pilots and technicians, as well as new flight simulators, logistic support and maintenance organizations specific to the Super Hornet. The air force would have to draw personnel from the existing CF- 18 fighter fleet (usually its most experienced people) to help bring into service a new and more complex fleet of fighter aircraft. But that would not be enough. It would be necessary to recruit, train and qualify several hundred new technicians and dozens of pilots. Recent experience indicates that the RCAF would face difficulty in achieving this; it can take four to five years from recruitment to produce fully trained, operationally ready pilots and specialists for advanced fighter aircraft. We foresee that bringing in an interim fleet would create serious practical problems of this kind.

Quite apart from such technical issues, we are aware that buying, operating and supporting an interim fleet of Super Hornets would be an expensive proposition, with cost estimates ranging from $5-$7 billion. We therefore ask that your government seek a better way of keeping the RCAF operationally effective until its fleet of CF- 18s is replaced with a modern fighter.

To this end, we respectfully recommend that three important initiatives be undertaken.

First, the RCAF should be given the necessary resources to conduct an aggressive recruiting and training process to eliminate existing personnel shortfalls and to provide for the interim period leading to CF- 18 replacement.

Second, if your government feels compelled to acquire additional fighters for the interim, it should seriously examine the prospect of purchasing so- called legacy Hornets (i.e. basically the same as our current CF- 18s) that are increasingly becoming available as Canada’s partner nations replace their older Hornet fleets with the F- 35. For example, both the United States Navy and the Royal Australian Air Force will have surplus F- 18s that are very close in configuration to our own. These would require very little modification to make them essentially identical to the CF- 18, having the same operational effectiveness and excellent safety record as today’s fleet. The capability exists in the Canadian aerospace industry to do the necessary modifications. The acquisition cost would be a fraction of a Super Hornet buy. Of critical importance, all the training, logistics and infrastructure needed to support the additional CF18s are already in place, and the larger CF- 18 fleet would fill the operational capability gap in the interim. All of this would be achieved without the cost, delay and disruption of burdening the RCAF with a second fleet of fighters.

Finally, and emphatically, we urge the government to proceed without further delay to implement the open and fair competition that you promised for replacement of our CF- 18s. Completing this within the next few years is entirely feasible, and it would allow for a faster, more effective and much less costly transition to full operational service by the CF-18’s eventual replacement.

We offer these recommendations based on our collective experience of many years of serving Canada’s air force, with the sole purpose of bringing to your attention some important realities regarding the future of the RCAF and the nation’s defence. We look to you for wisdom in resolving the matters that we have placed before you.

Sincerely,

Lieutenant- General (Ret’d) Larry Ashley

Lieutenant- General (Ret’d) Yvan Blondin

Lieutenant- General (Ret’d) Lloyd Campbell

Lieutenant- General (Ret’d) Bill Carr

Lieutenant- General (Ret’d) André Deschamps

Lieutenant- General (Ret’d) Dave Huddleston

Lieutenant- General (Ret’d) Dave Kinsman

Lieutenant- General (Ret’d) Steve Lucas

General (Ret’d) Paul Manson

Lieutenant- General (Ret’d) Don McNaughton

Lieutenant- General (Ret’d) Ken Pennie

Lieutenant- General (Ret’d) Fred Sutherland

Lieutenant- General (Ret’d) Angus Watt

Liberal Sideline Motion to Study Purchase of Super Hornets

By: David Pugliese, Defence Watch 

The Commons Standing Committee on Government Operations won’t be studying the purchase of 18 Boeing Super Hornets anytime soon.

Conservative MPs Alupa Clarke, and Kelly McCauley, the party’s critics for Public Services and Procurement, moved a motion Thursday calling on the Liberal members of the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates to immediately undertake a study of the government’s proposed purchase of the Super Hornets and that the committee report its findings to the Commons no later than Thursday, April 13. Debate on this motion was shut down by the Liberal majority on the committee, the Conservatives said.

Alupa Clarke and Kelly McCauley issued a statement following the committee: “The Liberals have once again used their majority on the Committee to shut down debate on the motion to study the Boeing sole-source contract. It is unacceptable that we are forced to resort to procedural tactics to have a study on such a massive contract for Canada. Despite the concerns of experts, military officials, and public servants, the Liberals will not allow this discussion to happen.”

Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan announced in November the Liberal government’s decision to buy 18 Boeing Super Hornets as “interim” fighter jets until a permanent fleet for the existing CF-18 aircraft could be bought.

Sajjan said Canada is facing a capability gap because it doesn’t have enough fighter jets to fulfill its military missions. Sajjan blamed the situation on the previous Conservative government, which he said had bungled the project to replace the aging CF-18s.


But Conservative defence critic James Bezan has questioned the Liberal claim the CF-18s are on their last legs. He has pointed out that military officers have stated those fighter jets can operate effectively until 2025, more than enough time for a permanent replacement jet to be bought.

Defence department officials had earlier warned against buying an interim fighter jet. But the report containing those warnings, which had previously been on the department’s website for more than a year, was quietly removed after the Liberal government announced its Super Hornet purchase.

The Defence Research and Development Canada report recommended against the purchase of such “bridging” aircraft to deal with gaps in capability. “The costs involved with bridging options make them unsuitable for filling capability gaps in the short term,” according to the report. “Any short term investment results in disproportionately high costs during the bridging period.”

The Liberal government has acknowledged the decision to buy the 18 Super Hornets will cost more in the long run but they haven’t provided details on what that amount might be.

There is no right now price tag,” Sajjan recently told journalists. “Once we have gone through the right process, have all the necessary information, then we’ll have an actual price tag.”

Stopgap Super Hornet purchase could have $5B to $7B price tag

By: Murray Brewster, CBC News

The Trudeau government has begun talks with Washington about the sole-source purchase of up to 18 Super Hornet jet fighters.

The measure, intended as a stopgap solution to ease pressure on the air force's aging fleet of CF-18s, could cost taxpayers between $5 billion and $7 billion over the lifetime of the aircraft, according to data circulating within the Department of National Defence and shared with CBC News by sources who insisted upon anonymity.

The figures are only preliminary, but they are backed up by U.S. congressional budget information.

CBC News was granted rare, extraordinary access to officials and facilities belonging to Boeing, the U.S. manufacturer of the Super Hornet, and to the U.S. navy's principal air base where the fighters operate and train. During that visit, Boeing officials confirmed Canada has begun talks with the Pentagon to buy the planes.

The decision to buy 18 warplanes in a sole-source deal, originally announced last fall, is meant to address what the Liberal government describes as an urgent "capability gap."

But it also lands Canada squarely in the middle of the Trump administration's showdown over the future of the Super Hornet's rival, the oft-maligned F-35.
1st delivery by 2019?

There are questions about what kind of deal Canada will get on the Super Hornets, especially with the new U.S. administration.

A final agreement, which requires congressional approval, will take about a year to negotiate, but CBC News has learned the Liberal government has already signalled it would like to see the first aircraft arrive in 2019, which would coincide with the next election.

A Boeing official, when asked, confirmed both the timeline and anticipated delivery date, and said the company is currently waiting for formal, written notice — known as a letter of request — from the Canadian government, which will be submitted to the U.S. Pentagon within the next few weeks.

CBC News was granted access to U.S. Naval Air Station Oceana at Virginia Beach to see U.S. navy Super Hornets in action. (Murray Brewster/CBC)

Dan Gillian, Boeing's vice-president of the F-18 programs, said the company is looking at how production of Canadian jets can be slotted alongside existing orders from the U.S. navy and Kuwait. Boeing currently produces two Super Hornets a month.

"We think we can build all of those airplanes in time to meet the customer demands," said Gillan. "We may have to increase production rate, but that is very doable."
U.S. navy costs a benchmark

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government promised in the last election not to buy Lockheed Martin's F-35 when it came time to replace Canada's entire 1980s-vintage CF-18 fleet.

The Liberals said they would buy a cheaper alternative and plow the savings back into rebuilding the navy, but Trudeau has since said the F-35 stealth fighter will not be excluded from an open competition for replacement jets.

Federal officials, including the head of the Royal Canadian Air Force, have taken pains to describe the process with Boeing as tentative and exploratory.

But Canadian military planners visited the company's St. Louis, Mo., engineering facility two weeks ago to scope out the customized features they want in the fighter.

That, along with a series of other factors, will determine how much Canada pays for what the Liberals insist is an "interim" solution to the problem of not having enough jet fighters to meet all of the country's military commitments.

A cost breakdown of the Super Hornets is provided in U.S. Department of Defence estimates:
The base price for a Super Hornet, according to U.S. Department of Defence 2015 budget estimates, was $85 million ($65 million US) per aircraft.
On top of that, there is what's known as government-furnished equipment, which can be anything from engines to radar and other electronics, depending on what the air force says it needs. That could add $26.2 million ($20 million US) per fighter — although those fees can sometimes be negotiated.
Washington also levies what is known as a foreign military sales charge of about 3.5 per cent, but other costs for research and development could boost U.S. service charges to as high 11 per cent, according to Pentagon records.

"What an airplane costs depends upon configuration, timing of deliveries and quantities. The U.S. government documents are a good reflection," said Boeing's Gillian.

That all means the final cost of each individual Super Hornet could range from $115 million ($88 million US) to $123 million ($94 million US), bringing a total purchase price of between $1.9 billion ($1.5 billion US) and $2.1 billion ($1.6 billion US) for 18 jets.

Canada has begun talks with the U.S. Defence Department to buy up to 18 Boeing Super Hornets. (Murray Brewster/CBC)

But the Liberal government would also have to negotiate an in-service support contract and consider buying training simulators, which can add billions.

When those costs are added in, the total price tag for the "interim" Super Hornet solution could run between $5 billion and $7 billion over the life of the planes.
Economic benefits

If the Liberal government buys the planes entirely through a foreign military sales deal, it means Boeing will not automatically be required to provide what are called industrial offsets — essentially, guaranteed work for Canadian companies.

"It gets tricky," said Dave Perry, an analyst with the Canadian Global Affairs Institute. The Liberals would have to negotiate benefits separately under such a deal, he said.

"It doesn't mean you can't get an economic offset, it just a little murkier."

But late Monday, Boeing officials said the company was prepared to deliver an offset equal to the purchase price the U.S. navy pays, roughly $85 million ($65 million US) per aircraft.
The Trump factor

U.S. President Donald Trump has also added an unexpected wrinkle to the Liberal government's plan.

Prior to taking office, Trump tweeted that he'd asked Boeing to "price out a comparable F-18 Super Hornet" to the F-35 in response to rising costs in the stealth fighter program.

U.S. President Donald Trump signs executive orders at the U.S. Department of Defence in Arlington, Va., last week. There are questions about what kind of deal Canada will strike with the Trump administration to buy Super Hornet jet fighters. (Olivier Douliery/Getty Images)

Lockheed Martin said last week it was confident it would soon get the price of an F-35 down to $111 million ($85 million US) per plane. Canada would not have to pay the foreign military sales charge because it has already contributed toward the development of the project.

Much of the public debate in Canada has revolved around the enormous cost of the F-35. In fact, the Liberal government's distaste for the stealth fighter was formed partly by the former Conservative government's refusal to be more transparent about the price tag.

Perry said it would be ironic if Trump succeeded in quickly driving down the cost to the point where both fighters were competitively priced.

"If Trump is able to gets some extra savings out of Lockheed … my guess is you're looking at a 10 per cent cost difference [between the Super Hornet and the F-35]," he said.

Interim Fighter Jet report to Remain Secret

By: David Pugliese, Defence Watch 

A report which warned against buying an interim fighter jet for the Canadian military will remain secret, even though it had previously been on the Defence department’s website for more than a year.

The report was quietly pulled down from the site after the Liberal government announced its decision to purchase 18 Boeing Super Hornets as “interim” fighter jets until a permanent fleet for the existing CF-18 aircraft could be bought.

The Defence Research and Development Canada report recommended against the purchase of such “bridging” aircraft to deal with gaps in capability.

The Liberal government has said Canada is facing a capability gap because it doesn’t have enough fighter jets to fulfill its military missions. Because of that it needs to buy the Super Hornets.

But the 2014 report that had been on the Department of National Defence website questioned that type of strategy. “The costs involved with bridging options make them unsuitable for filling capability gaps in the short term,” according to the report. “Any short term investment results in disproportionately high costs during the bridging period.”

The report was carefully reviewed for security issues before being put on the DND website, defence sources say. The report cited data that was in the public domain and there was no use of secret information.

It was pulled from the website the day the Liberal government announced it was purchasing the Super Hornets.

At one point, the DND was looking at putting the report back on its site, with certain revisions, but that won’t be done.

“It is judged that given the current threat environment, the aggregate of the information contained in the report speaks to the capability of the Canadian Armed Forces and is sensitive in nature,” the Department of National Defence stated in an email to the Ottawa Citizen. “For this reason, the report cannot be easily excised and will no longer be made available to the public.”‎

The statement did not explain how the “threat environment” in 2014-2015, when the report was public, was different from the situation in 2016 when the report was pulled down.

The analysis also determined that whatever aircraft Canada selects in the future to replace the CF-18, it should go with a single fleet of the same type of planes. “The analysis found that a mixed fleet of 38 higher capability aircraft, chosen for their ability to fulfill the most challenging of the NATO missions, and 34 lower capability aircraft, capable of fulfilling Canada’s NORAD obligations, could not provide the same capability as the single fleet of 65 higher capability aircraft,” it added.

The Liberal government has acknowledged the decision to buy the 18 Super Hornets will cost more in the long run but it has blamed the previous Conservative government for bungling the CF-18 replacement.

Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan says Canada is facing a fighter capability gap when it comes to dealing with its commitments to NORAD and NATO.

But the head of the Royal Canadian Air Force has said the gap was created in 2016 when the Liberals changed defence policy, requiring the RCAF to meet both its NATO and North American air defence commitments at the same time.

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

“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 said before a senate defence committee in late November. “They’ve (the Liberals) changed the policy of the number of aircraft I have to have.”

Lawson fears Liberals Fighter Jet plan too Pricey

By: Laura Payton, CTV News 

The former head of Canada's military says the Liberal government’s plan to buy an interim fighter jet fleet will be expensive and difficult to carry out.

Retired general Tom Lawson, who served as chief of the defence staff from 2012 to 2015, says he believes Canada will end up buying Lockheed Martin's F-35 fighter jet to replace the current fleet of CF-18 Hornets despite the government choosing Boeing's Super Hornet to beef up the current air craft.

"There are hundreds of these things flying now and they've been declared combat-capable in the United States," Lawson said in an interview with Evan Solomon, host of CTV's Question Period.

Retired general Tom Lawson appears on CTV's Question Period on Sunday, Jan. 22, 2016.

"And they'll be getting better and better for years to come. The F-35 is the way forward, not only for the United States but all the members and the partners who have bought into that program."

Lawson, a long-time supporter of the F-35, is now retired from the Canadian Forces. In an email to CTVNews.ca, he said he has done several days of work for Lockheed Martin as a strategic adviser, but noted his support for the F-35 dates back to his time as assistant chief of the Royal Canadian Air Force.

The F-35 was the source of considerable controversy during Lawson's time as Canada's top soldier, after the auditor general and parliamentary budget officer found a range of problems with a planned purchase of the Lockheed Martin jets. The problems included national defence not telling the government about the aircraft's potential drawbacks or the full costs of the program, as well as not having documents to support some of the decisions defence officials made.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau promised, during the 2015 election campaign, to hold an open competition to choose the CF-18 replacement, but pledged at the same time not to buy the F-35.

Last November, the government announced it was working on buying 18 Boeing Super Hornets as an interim measure while holding a five-year competition to choose a long-term replacement for the CF-18s.

Lawson, a former pilot, said that decision caught him off-guard because he believes Canada will eventually purchase the F-35.

"Every time the F-35 is in competition, it is the top -- in many cases the only choice out there, and it's becoming cheaper and developing an excellent reputation," Lawson said.

"So I think what caught me by surprise is that this putting off of that decision will of course be expensive and very difficult for the RCAF to carry out."

The current fleet of CF-18s is more than 30 years old and down from 138 planes to 76, according to numbers provided by the government.

During the 2015 election campaign, the Liberals estimated the cost of an F-35 at $175 million per plane, with the Super Hornet coming in at $65 million.

Canada has obligations to NORAD and NATO that require a specific number of jets to be "mission-ready," although officials won't say how many planes that means. Defence officials say there aren't enough mission-ready planes, but admit that is due to a change in policy under which they started counting the combined NORAD and NATO commitments. That policy changed on the day they announced the plan to purchase an interim fleet, a defence spokeswoman told

Conservatives hoping Auditor General will investigate Super Hornet deal

By: David Pugliese, Defence Watch 

Conservative defence critic James Bezan said his party has asked Auditor General Michael Ferguson to conduct an investigation into the Liberal government’s proposed sole-source purchase of 18 Super Hornets.

A US Navy F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter lands onto the deck of the USS Ronald Reagan, a Nimitz-class nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, during a joint naval drill between South Korea and the US in the West Sea off South Korea on October 28, 2015. KIM HONG / AFP/GETTY IMAGES

“Given the magnitude of this decision, we have requested that the Auditor General of Canada conduct an investigation to determine that all rules were followed properly,” Conservative MPs wrote in a letter to the Auditor General sent just before Christmas.

No word yet from the Auditor General’s office on whether this investigation will happen.

But Bezan says the party believes the AG can unravel the purchase to see whether it makes financial sense or whether it will end up costing taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars extra.

“I know with lifetime gag orders put in place at Defence, Public Works, Justice and other departments on this purchase, it will make it incredibility difficult to ever see what the details really are,” Bezan explained. “But the Auditor General is one person who can really get in there and ensure that rules are followed or were followed.”

In the letter to the AG, the Conservatives noted: “This deal could stick taxpayers with a multi-billion dollar bill and will have a significant impact on the aerospace industry across Canada; thousands of jobs could be at risk. Most importantly, this decision will directly affect the Royal Canadian Air Force, their ability to keep our borders safe and to work internationally with our allies.”

RCAF Sets-Aside CF-18 for Airshow...but can't meet NATO-NORAD Commitments?

By: David Pugliese, Defence Watch 

The Canadian military is assigning a CF-18 fighter jet to the airshow circuit for next year, despite Liberal government claims it does not have enough aircraft to meet its defence commitments.

Each year, the Royal Canadian Air Force assigns a CF-18, painted to highlight a specific theme, to fly at airshows across North America.

But the decision to assign a jet for next year’s airshow circuit comes just after Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan and Chief of the Defence Staff Gen. Jon Vance warned that Canada doesn’t have enough of the jets to meet its military commitments to defend North America and contribute to NATO.

The plane, known as the CF-18 demonstration aircraft, will perform at 35 different locations in the U.S. and Canada from April to October.

In November, Sajjan announced the government needed to purchase 18 Boeing Super Hornet jets as a stop-gap measure since Canada didn’t have enough CF-18 fighters to perform military missions. The Liberals plan to buy a replacement fleet for the aging CF-18s at a much later date.


But critics have questioned Sajjan’s claim there are not enough jets, instead arguing the Super Hornet deal is designed to allow the Liberals to push off the replacement of the CF-18 fleet until well after the next election.

Conservative MP James Bezan, the party’s defence critic, said the assignment of the CF-18 demonstration jet to the airshow circuit undercuts the Liberal government’s claim there are not enough of the fighter jets to go around.

“I understand that we like to go out there and fly the colours and that it’s part of promoting our Canadian Armed Forces but at the same time it just shows this capability gap doesn’t exist,” Bezan said Thursday. “This has been completely manufactured by the Prime Minister’s Office to make the argument that there is a need for a sole-source purchase of the Super Hornets.”

RCAF spokesman David Lavallee said the CF-18 demonstration team aircraft is part of the operational CF-18 fleet. But he added that, “the assignment of a single CF-18 for the purpose of air demonstration is not affecting current operational tasks.”

The aircraft also serves a valuable role as part of the RCAF’s recruiting campaign, Lavallee noted.

If the aircraft, to be painted in 2017 to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the confederation of Canada, is needed for a mission, then it would be redirected for operations. “While the CF-18 Demo Team is an important tool to support outreach and recruiting, it is in fact also included in our mission-ready aircraft availability,” Lavallee added.

Sajjan and Vance have raised the spectre of the military not having enough planes to deal with a terrorist attack. Sajjan said the Liberal 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 added.

But in November, the head of the RCAF acknowledged the capability gap issue was created by the Liberal government’s recent rejigging of defence policy. Lt.-Gen. Mike Hood said he wasn’t privy to why the policy changed. Hood said the gap was created earlier in 2016 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 at a committee hearing. “They’ve (the Liberals) changed the policy of the number of aircraft I have to have.”

Delaying the eventual replacement of the CF-18 fleet would allow the Liberal government to avoid, for the time being, the potential of the F-35 stealth fighter winning any such competition. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has campaigned against the purchase of that plane, claiming it does not work and is too costly.

Bezan also pointed out that the CF-18s are being used more to do fly-overs for sporting events, including a number of flights throughout the fall. “They seem to be available for all sorts of public relations work but at the same time we aren’t seeing them doing military air policing or combat missions which the RCAF has done with pride in the past,” he said.

Bezan: Liberal’s fighter jet capability gap becomes a credibility gap

Conservative Party defence critic James Bezan submitted this opinion piece on the Liberal government’s decision to purchase Super Hornet fighter jets as an interim measure to deal with what they say is a fighter aircraft capability gap:

By James Bezan

As the Liberals attempt to rationalize their sole-source deal of Boeing’s Super Hornet fighter jets, their credibility gap on the file continues to widen.

Justin Trudeau’s credibility on the issue first took a hit when he made an impossible campaign promise. He committed to holding an open and fair competition to replace Canada’s CF-18 fighter jets while simultaneously excluding the F-35. Aside from the fact that this promise is self-contradicting; to directly inject politics into a decision of this magnitude is disheartening.

In June, the National Post revealed that the Liberals intended to purchase an interim fleet of fighter jets to fill a so-called ‘capability gap’. However, in April, Lieutenant-General Hood, the Commander of the Royal Canadian Air Force, confirmed to Members of Parliament that Canada’s fleet of CF-18s are able to meet our current NORAD and NATO commitments and will be able to do so confidently until 2025.

The day before the Liberals announced their intention to enter into negotiations with Boeing, officials from the Department of National Defence reconfirmed Lieutenant-General Hood’s comments in writing.

However, in a recent Senate appearance before the Senate, Lieutenant-General Hood attempted to clarify the government’s position, confirming what critics had long expected – the Liberals created their own capability gap. Prior to concluding the Liberals’ Defence Policy Review, Prime Minister Trudeau gerrymandered the policy of jet requirements to fit with his own political views.

The commander of the RCAF was not privy to the decisions behind this policy change as it was a purely political move enforced by the Prime Minister’s office.

By purchasing the Super Hornets now, the Liberals have jeopardized any hope of a fair competition moving forward. Of course with 18 of their jets already purchased by the Government of Canada, Boeing will have a guaranteed edge over any competitor.

The Liberals have promised to launch a five-year ‘open and transparent’ process to replace the entire fleet of fighter jets. Experts agree this amount of time is unnecessary. In fact, The Netherlands, Norway, and South Korea each ran an open and fair competition for their fighter jets and not one lasted more than two years.

Not only is the Liberals’ decision to sole-source the Super Hornet unnecessary, their approach to the process has been unethical.

In the lead up to the Liberal’s announcement, Boeing representatives appeared to have been given preferential access to Cabinet Ministers. Lobbyists from Boeing met with members of the government seven times more often than any of their competitors. Other companies had their meeting requests denied.

To make matters worse, Prime Minister Trudeau is forbidding federal employees from speaking out against this cynically political process. He has placed an unprecedented life-time gag-order on all 235 individuals working on the Future Fighter Capability Project. This is a blatant attempt on the part of the Liberals to silence their own critics so that they can move ahead with this politicized partisan procurement.

This uninformed campaign promise could also impact Canada’s reputation as a reliable ally. As more than 10 of Canada’s allies have committed to 5th generation fighters in the F-35, Canada will be one of the last developed nations to be flying 4th generation

fighters.

With fewer capabilities and less in common with our allied partners, the RCAF will be less likely to be called upon for international operations.

A key component of the Liberal’s misguided campaign promise was that they would buy a cheaper alternative to the F-35. But we don’t know the price of the Super Hornets.

Prime Minister Trudeau is giving Boeing a blank cheque. Operating an interim fleet comes with significant additional costs on infrastructure, training, and maintenance.

If the Liberals continue with their commitment to operate a mixed fleet of fighters, the RCAF’s capabilities and interoperability will be reduced for years to come. The Liberal’s plan would force our current fleet of fighters to fly beyond their current 2025 life expectancy into 2030, which the Department of National Defence has accessed as a high-risk option.

This highlights the Prime Minister’s naïve approach to the needs of our military and his inability to manage our country’s finances. Earlier this month Kuwait purchased 40 Super Hornets at $335 million apiece, five times more expensive than the $65 million the Liberals promised during the election.

In addition to hitting every taxpayer’s pocketbook, the Liberals’ political strategy could cost thousands of Canadian aerospace workers their jobs. There are currently 70 companies across Canada that have already benefited from over $1 billion worth of contracts under Lockheed Martin’s F-35 program. If executed, the Liberals’ sole-sourced deal with Boeing could put these jobs in jeopardy.

By ignoring the experts, in a desperate attempt to fulfill a campaign promise, the Liberals have created a political mess of their own doing. Prime Minister Trudeau needs to acknowledge that fighter jets are not just for simply ‘whipping out to show how big they are’. They serve an integral part in maintaining our national security and sovereignty, and are essential to our status as a reliable ally.

The Prime Minister needs to realize that this decision is larger than himself. He should listen to the experts and cancel this sole-sourced deal before his credibility gap has consequences for Canadian taxpayers, aerospace workers, and our military.

Den Tandt: Super Hornet purchase leaves CAF Members last on the list of priorities

By: Michael Den Tandt, National Post 

It’s truly remarkable, given how Liberal and Conservative MPs speak so often and sincerely of their sacred covenant with the “brave men and women in uniform,” that this country’s air force is obsolete and decrepit, and has been so for as long as anyone now living can remember.

You’d think, given the volume of talk in the House of Commons over the past decade on their behalf, that RCAF pilots – one of whom died Monday, tragically, in a training accident in Cold Lake, Alta. – would be flying X-wing fighters out of Star Wars by now, and not a ragtag fleet of 1980s-vintage refurbs that were new when many members of the current parliament were children.

The Liberal government, with Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan leading the charge, has pledged redress with a sole-source purchases of 18 Boeing Super Hornets – the updated version of Canada’s CF-18. So grievous is the “capability gap,” of the Royal Canadian Air Force, we’re told, there’s no time for competitive bids. That’s for later, perhaps as many as five years hence when, with due deference to best practices and Treasury Board guidelines and other such guff that means a lot until cabinet decides it means nothing, the actual next RCAF fighter will be chosen.

Lockheed Martin’s F-35 Lightning II fighter-bomber will be among the competitors at this pageant, gainsaying the Liberals’ 2015 election pledge to nix the vaunted “fifth generation” stealth fighter entirely. But never mind: Five years from now is another term, another cabinet, possibly another government. In political terms it may as well be another universe on another planet.

Politically, it is all quite clever – which is why the howls of outrage have been muted to non-existent, unlike the state of affairs in late 2012, when the former Conservative government got mauled over its own sole-source plan to buy 65 F-35s, and later shelved it. The reason for the soft landing is twofold.

First, the RCAF really does badly need new fighters. In an increasingly uncertain geopolitical climate, the opposition Conservatives are in no position to argue forcefully against any purchase that makes the Canadian military more capable in the short-term. Second is the aerospace contracts, tied to Canada’s continuing membership in the F-35 consortium.

Those contracts, held by more than 30 Canadian companies that contribute to Lockheed-Martin’s supply chain, are worth more than $600-million. Any final decision to ditch the F-35 would put them at risk – particularly now, we have to assume, with a protectionist U.S. Congress and a protectionist U.S. president on the ascendant.

Kicking this can further down the road keeps Lockheed in the game, at least technically: Since last year, the U.S. weapons manufacturer has lobbied simply for inclusion in an eventual competition, a guarantee it now apparently has.

Political cleverness aside, this is egregiously dishonest, on several fronts.

First, the “capability gap.” It emerged this week that the cabinet, not the RCAF, had arbitrarily changed the definition of how many planes it needed in order to fulfill its basic mandate of protecting Canadian air space and meeting NATO commitments.

Political cleverness aside, this is egregiously dishonest, on several fronts

This makes sense when you consider the 77 functioning CF-18s are up for another refurb, price tag about $500-milion, that will keep them flying until 2025. There may indeed be a looming emergency that requires Canada to have 95 working fighters (77 plus 18) heading into the next decade. If so, what emergency? And at what budgetary cost?

Had the Conservatives dared to quietly grow the RCAF fighter fleet by 23 per cent, at a cost of $65-$70-milion per plane, the Liberals would have called them warmongers and spendthrifts. To be sure, the Liberals may be embarrassed by the very mention of the CF-18 – having made such a to-do about withdrawing them last spring from the war against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. Having beaten swords into ploughshares, they’re now buying more swords. How awkward.

More disingenuous still is the claim that a proper, open fighter competition is impossible in short order. The five possible selections are the F-35, Boeing’s Super Hornet, the Eurofighter Typhoon, Saab’s Gripen, and Dassault’s Rafale. The specs, per-unit and operating costs of all these aircraft are known. Given an abridged new statement of requirements, a competition could have been run and a new fighter selected in 2017, industry sources tell me.

Follow the Liberal strategy to its conclusion and you end up with this: A mixed fleet, comprising some CF-18s, 18 newish Super Hornets, and years hence, long after the punters have forgotten Campaign 2015, the F-35 – by which time it, too, will likely be obsolete.

It boils down to this: The “brave men and women in uniform” will get the barest minimum the government can get away with providing, until another military crisis on the scale of the Afghan war forces its hand, after which it will buy whatever equipment it can find, in a panic. It’s how we roll, here in Canada.

Canada's New Super Hornet Plans Possibly Illegal say Critics

By: David Pugliese, Defense News 

RCAF CF-18's (Globe and Mail File Photo)

VICTORIA, British Columbia – The Canadian government’s proposal to buy 18 Super Hornet aircraft as a stopgap measure before proceeding to a full competition for a new fighter jet is not only a waste of time and money but illegal, say political and industry critics of the plan.

Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan announced Nov. 22 that Canada would enter into negotiations with Boeing for the purchase of the 18 aircraft. Sajjan noted the government had been forced to proceed with the urgent acquisition because a capability gap had emerged with the current fleet of CF-18 fighters. Canada cannot meet its NORAD, NATO and other defense commitments with those aging aircraft, he added.


But Canada’s former procurement chief says the Super Hornet deal is illegal and can be challenged if Lockheed Martin or other aircraft firms wanted to do so. Existing trade agreements allow for Canada to proceed with a purchase without competition if there is an urgent and unforeseeable need for goods and services required by the military, said Alan Williams, the former assistant deputy minister for materiel at Canada’s Department of National Defence.

“A capability gap that was allowed to grow over many years is hardly unforeseeable," said Williams. “Bad planning is not an excuse for sole-sourcing.”

Williams noted the Liberal Party government has been in power for a year and already had enough information to launch a full competition for a permanent fighter replacement.

Lockheed Martin officials have expressed their disappointment in the government’s decision to buy Super Hornets but the firm has not indicated its next course of action.

Liberal Party Prime Minister Justin Trudeau vowed his government would hold a competition for a new jet. But he also made an election promise last year that Canada would not buy the F-35 as it was too expensive and didn’t meet the country’s needs.

James Bezan, the defense critic for the Conservative Party, said the CF-18 capability gap issue was concocted to support the sole-source purchase of the Super Hornet. The country’s 77 CF-18 fighter jets are capable of doing the job until a full competition can be held to buy a new plane, he added.

Bezan said the decision to buy Super Hornets as a stopgap solution will end up wasting billions of dollars and valuable time needed to replace the CF-18 fleet.

Sajjan has said it will take at least another five years to run a competition to buy a fleet of jets to replace the CF-18s on a permanent basis. The government has said Lockheed Martin is welcome to enter the F-35 in that competition when it is held.

Questions have also been raised about the validity of the Sajjan’s claim that the CF-18s can’t defend the country.

When Lt. Gen. Michael Hood, the commander of the Royal Canadian Air Force, testified in April before the Commons defence committee, he didn’t mention a capability gap. Instead he told lawmakers the CF-18s could continue operating until 2025 or beyond.

Concern has also been voiced about how the Super Hornet purchase will affect Canadian industry participation in the F-35 program.
Canada has said it intends to continue as a partner in the program but Lockheed Martin suggested several months ago it could reconsider participation by Canadian companies if the F-35 is not purchased.

Brian Pallister, the Conservative Party premier of the province of Manitoba, said the Super Hornet acquisition is not only a waste of tax dollars but could jeopardize aerospace firms involved in the F-35 program.

Pallister said he was particularly concerned about Magellan Aerospace in Winnipeg, a company that makes the tail assemblies for the F-35 as well as other components.

But Navdeep Bains, the government minister in charge of industry and innovation, said any deal for the Super Hornets would bring with it the equivalent amount of work for Canadian firms.

DND Confirms: RCAF Not Looking to Acquire EA-18G Growlers

By: David Pugliese, Defence Watch 

As the dust settles after last week’s announcement that Canada would buy 18 Super Hornet fighter jets, Defence Watch readers have raised an interesting question.

Will any of those 18 aircraft be EA-18G Growlers?

A variant of the Super Hornet, the EA-18G Growler provides tactical jamming and electronic protection. If Canada were to acquire those type of aircraft – or at least some to be part of that 18-plane order – then that would be a truly game-changing development.

The Royal Australia Air Force has gone that route. Boeing was awarded the contract for 12 Growlers to be acquired by the RAAF under a foreign military sales agreement with the U.S. Navy. In July of 2015, Boeing and the U.S. Navy turned over the first EA-18G Growler to Australia. (Australia is the first country other than the U.S. to obtain this aircraft, Boeing noted.)

The Growlers are to enhance the RAAF’s current fleet, which includes 24 Super Hornets, Boeing pointed out.

EA-18G at Whidbey April 2007

So will Canada take the plunge?

The official word from the Department of National Defence is no. None of the 18 Super Hornets will be a Growler variant; just the “vanilla” type of Super Hornet aircraft.

An opportunity wasted perhaps?

RCAF’s Lt.-Gen. Hood throws a monkey wrench into Liberal claims about CF-18s

By: David Pugliese, Defence Watch 

On Tuesday, Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan claimed that the government had to proceed immediately with the purchase of 18 Super Hornets from Boeing. Negotiations would begin soon. Sajjin said the reason was that a “capability gap” had materialized. It was serious, he warned. It meant that there were not enough CF-18s around to meet Canada’s defence needs. Both Sajjan and Chief of the Defence Staff Gen. Jon Vance warned that Canada could be vulnerable to a 911-type attack because of the lack of fighter jets.

It looks like that memo didn’t reach the desk of Lt. Gen. Mike Hood, the commander of the Royal Canadian Air Force. Testifying back in April to a Commons defence committee, Hood never mentioned anything about a capability gap. In fact, he said he was comfortable that the CF-18s could continue operating until 2025 – or even beyond. That was more than enough time for a full replacement of the fleet, he suggested.

So the committee went back for clarification on that point. The RCAF obliged with an answer this week.

“The Commander of the RCAF is confident that, based on the latest information available, there is sufficient capacity to support a transition to a replacement fighter capability based on the ongoing projects and planned life extension to 2025 for the CF-18,” it noted in a statement provided to the defence committee this week.

“New upgrades to F/A-18 (CF-18) systems are being developed and implemented by Allies, which would reduce operational, technical and cost risks to Canada’s CF-18 fleet if additional capability improvements are required.”


UPDATE – Defence Minister Sajjan’s spokeswoman Jordan Owens has responded to this Defence Watch article. Here is what she has to say:

“The capability gap is about there being an insufficient number of aircraft available on any given day to meet our existing NORAD obligations and NATO commitments combined, not to mention having the capacity to react to unforeseen and emerging threats. Keeping old planes flying longer won’t address the capability gap. With the current availability rate of Canada’s 77 CF-18s, there is a capability gap that the Air Force has to risk manage. With the current availability rate what it is, even if the 77 airplanes could fly forever, there still wouldn’t be enough of them to simultaneously meet our NORAD and NATO commitments. The only way to address the capability gap is to improve the availability rate of our fighter fleet. This means we need more people and it means we need more planes. The situation the previous government left us in absolutely means we will need to extend the life of the fleet, in order to make up for the time they wasted not procuring a replacement for the CF-18s.”

Nossal: Super Hornets – How Trudeau played politics with defence procurement

By: Kim Richard Nossal, The Ottawa Citizen 

We shouldn’t be surprised that Canada is going to buy an interim fleet of 18 Boeing Super Hornets.

The Liberal government has been desperately looking for a way out of the mess Justin Trudeau created when he decided it would be a good idea to play politics by promising in the middle of the election campaign that a Liberal government would not purchase the Lockheed Martin F-35 to replace the CF-18 Hornets that Canada has been flying since the early 1980s.

Trudeau promised that this decision would save billions of dollars that could be poured into naval procurement. This was always a rash promise, on so many levels.

If Canada doesn’t buy F-35s, then the Royal Canadian Air Force will not be as fully interoperable with the U.S. Air Force in the North American Aerospace Defense (NORAD) Command as it would be with them.

For the U.S. will be flying only one new fighter in NORAD in the 2020s and 2030s: the F-35, the result a congressional decision in 1994. (USAF F-22 Raptors also fly NORAD patrols, but the Americans won’t let even their closest allies buy these aircraft.) The RCAF’s Super Hornets can be networked with F-35s, but they are simply not as capable, and much more vulnerable.

If Canada doesn’t buy F-35s, Canadian aerospace firms will be cut out of Lockheed Martin’s global value chains. The F-35, with its long production run that extends well into the 2030s, offers considerable benefits to those who remain as global partners. Boeing, which lost the Joint Strike Fighter competition to Lockheed Martin in the early 2000s, cannot offer the Canadian aerospace industry the kind of benefits Lockheed Martin can.

Finally, Canada is part of a nine-nation multinational consortium that is producing the Joint Strike Fighter. In all, 11 of Canada’s close allies and friends will be buying, and flying, the F-35 in the next two decades: Australia, Britain, Denmark, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, Israel, Japan, South Korea, Turkey and the United States. If Canada does not purchase the F-35, it will be out of step with all these allies in the decades ahead.

Given the rashness of the Trudeau promise, his minister of national defence, Harjit Sajjan, has been hunting for a way out. In the summer, Sajjan took a trip to Australia, and liked the so-called “Aussie option.” Australia, unlike Canada, is firmly committed to buying the F-35, but needed an interim fleet of fighters to fill in for their old F-111s while waiting for their F-35s to be delivered. They bought a fleet of 24 Super Hornets.

Embracing the Aussie option is a perfect solution for the Liberal government: it gets to keep Trudeau’s rash promise not to buy the F-35, at least for now; it gets to remain in the nine-nation Joint Strike Fighter partnership with benefits from being in Lockheed Martin’s global value chains if a future government buys the F-35; and it gets three “six-packs” of fighters that can work with USAF F-35s in NORAD or be deployed elsewhere.

Most importantly, it gets to kick a real decision about the CF-18 replacement down the road, well beyond the next election.

Now this may be a good way out of the mess that Trudeau stumbled into in 2015 playing political games with defence procurement, but it is going to be a huge and costly decision for Canadian taxpayers. The aircraft that Canada will be flying for the next decade may both have “Hornet” in their name, but running two fleets of jet fighters is likely going to be exceedingly costly.

And buying an almost embarrassingly tiny fleet of Super Hornets now just postpones the day when a government in the future will have to pony up for a replacement for the aging CF-18s. A future government will have to buy a fleet of at least 65 fighters.

The substantial tab for Trudeau’s gamesmanship – both now and into the 2020s – will be felt not only by the taxpayers, but also by the other services of the Canadian Armed Forces, particularly the Royal Canadian Navy. So much for saving on fighters to pour more into ships for the RCN.

Unfortunately, we have been here before. The Liberal government of Jean Chrétien played exactly the same kind of political game during the 1993 election, promising to cancel a helicopter contract signed by his predecessor, Brian Mulroney. The new Liberal government did so on its very first day in office, throwing away nearly $500 million. And we will not see all the replacements for the old Sea Kings arrive until the early 2020s.

The Conservative government of Stephen Harper played politics with the CF-18 replacement and completely botched it, not only adding significant costs to the replacement but also laying the groundwork for the games that Trudeau played in 2015.

It is too bad for the long-suffering taxpayers and the equally long-suffering members of the Canadian Armed Forces that the present prime minister didn’t look back to see how his father handled replacing fighter jets.

For Pierre Elliott Trudeau and his Liberal party, and those across the aisle in the Progressive Conservative party, didn’t play politics with defence procurement in the late 1970s – unlike some of their successors.
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Kim Richard Nossal is a professor with the Centre for International and Defence Policy at Queen’s University. His latest book, Charlie Foxtrot: Fixing Defence Procurement in Canada, is available from Dundurn Press.

Plan for stop-gap Super Hornets leaves question of Cost Unanswered

By: Lee Berthiaume and Steve Lambert, Canadian Press 

OTTAWA — The federal government unveiled its interim steps Tuesday in the long-fraught effort to replace Canada's aging fleet of fighter jets, but key questions — how much it would cost taxpayers and the impact on the military — remained up in the air.

Following a closed-door cabinet meeting on Parliament Hill, three Liberal cabinet ministers held a news conference to announce plans to enter into discussions with U.S. aerospace giant Boeing to purchase 18 Super Hornet jets.

At the same time, however, the government intends to launch an open competition starting next year to replace all 77 of the air force's CF-18s — a process that's expected to last up to five years.

The ministers described buying the 18 Super Hornets as a necessary stop-gap to ensure Canada has enough planes to fill a so-called "capability gap" — enabling it to both fulfil its NATO obligations and to defend North American interests.

"We need additional planes as soon as possible for an interim period," said Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan, flanked by Public Procurement Minister Judy Foote and Innovation Minister Navdeep Bains.

"Having a new squadron of interim aircraft will mitigate those risks significantly as we address the capability gap."

The Hornet, the ministers said, is both compatible with the U.S. and currently operational — the unspoken implication being that the F-35 remains in development, even though the U.S. Air Force declared it operational in the summer.

And even as they repeatedly highlighted the urgent need for new planes, the ministers refused to say much the government expects the Super Hornets to cost to buy and operate.

During last year's election campaign, the Liberals pegged the cost of a single F-35 — the vaunted and controversial stealth fighter favoured by the previous Conservative government — at $175 million, compared with $65 million for one Super Hornet.

But Kuwait recently announced plans to buy 40 Super Hornets for $13 billion. Even with eight of them specially equipped for electronic warfare, that still works out to $335 million per plane.

At the same time, Denmark is moving ahead with plans to buy 27 F-35s at a cost of $4 billion, which amounts to about $148 million per plane.

Then there's the compatibility issue: a government-appointed expert panel and the military's research branch determined in separate reports that it would be extremely expensive for Canada to operate two types of fighter jets, given the different training, infrastructure and supporting equipment required.

Sajjan sidestepped questions about the supposed savings promised by the Liberals during last year's election campaign.

"We want to go through an appropriate process to determine all the costings," he said, "but at the same time, making sure that we fill the capability gap while we look to the long term of replacing our fighter fleet as well."

Foote, meanwhile, wouldn't say what would happen if Boeing tried playing hardball with the government, stating only that it was in the company's interest to come up with a good deal for Canada.

The ministers also deflected questions over whether buying Super Hornets now would give the plane a leg-up on its competitors in the upcoming competition.

"We're having an open, transparent, competitive process," Foote said. "The more we have engaging in that process, the more competitors we have, the better it will be for Canada."

Air force officials were reportedly dead-set against the plan to purchase Super Hornets, which they consider outdated technology compared with the state-of-the-art — albeit largely unproven — F-35.

The government has also been accused of manufacturing a "capability gap" to allow for the purchase of the aircraft without a competition.

But the Liberal plan was praised by defence chief Gen. Jonathan Vance, who stated categorically that the military desperately needed new planes immediately.

"With this investment in the Royal Canadian Air Force over the short and long term, Canadian air space will be better defended," he said.

Opposition parties seized on the announcement as a waste of taxpayer dollars at best, and a case of political interference at worst.

"The prime minister is making a political decision about what fighter jets to buy our pilots," interim Conservative leader Rona Ambrose said during question period.

"Instead of telling our fighter pilots what jets they are allowed to have, why does he not let them make the decision?"

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau blamed the Conservatives for "completely botching" the procurement effort.

NDP defence critic Randall Garrison openly mocked the notion of an open competition with 18 new Super Hornets stationed at Canadian bases.

"I don't think anyone can take seriously that after we replace a third of our fleet with the Super Hornets there can possibly be a level playing field for some kind of open competition after that."

Rival Lockheed Martin, which makes the F-35, said it was "disappointed" by the news, but struck a conciliatory tone by saying it was looking forward to an open competition.

The government made a point of saying it would remain a member of the program that produced the F-35, and that the aircraft would be allowed to compete.

Manitoba Premier Brian Pallister expressed concern about the fate of Manitoba companies that have been supplying parts for the F-35.

"I take this as a very obvious departure from the stated commitments the federal government has made in respect to our aerospace industry here in Manitoba," Pallister said.

"We are not impressed or happy with the announcement this morning," he added.

— With files from Steve Lambert in Winnipeg

Lee Berthiaume , The Canadian Press

Ivison: Super Hornet Interim Buy a Political Decision

By: John Ivison, The National Post

In choosing to buy 18 Boeing Super Hornet fighters, the federal government has brought forward a political solution to solve a political problem of its own making, John Ivison writes.

The Liberals had campaigned on a promise that they would not purchase Lockheed Martin’s F-35 fighter jet to replace its aging and dwindling fleet of CF18s, which now numbers 77.

It would instead launch an open and transparent competition for a new fighter.

A former Defence official said a competition could produce an answer within a year. But that would carry the risk that the F-35 could win before the next election.

The commander of the air force has previously said he needs just 65 fighters to fulfil Canada’s NATO and Norad requirements.

But the government says it needs 18 new fighters and that any future competition would exclude “firststrike stealth capabilities.”

The solution: sole-source the interim Super Hornets purchase and delay the competition to replace the CF18 fleet for five years. The uncomfortable attempting to justify the indefensible. That was how it looked as government ministers Harjit Sajjan, Judy Foote and Navdeep Bains delivered the news that Ottawa will sole source the interim purchase of 18 Boeing Super Hornet fighter jets. They appeared to be secretly ashamed at the trumpery of it all, as well they should have been.

The Liberal government had a political problem: it campaigned on the promise that it would not purchase Lockheed Martin’s F-35 fighter jet, and that it would “immediately” launch an open and transparent competition to replace the aging CF18 fighter fleet.

But it could not risk being too open, transparent or immediate, lest the F-35 win before the next election.

So political operatives in the Prime Minister’s Office came up with a plan so cunning, you could put a tail on it and call it a fox: buy a small number of the F-35’s competitor and push off the competition to replace the fleet for five years.

Sajjan, the defence minister, decried the mismanagement of the previous Conservative government — “a highly politicized process” — that has left just 77 CF-18s in the fleet and no replacement jets on order. In this, he’s right but it hardly excuses instigating a repeat of history as farce.

By sole sourcing the interim purchase, the Liberals will be doing exactly what the Conservatives did when they chose the F-35 in the first place.

Sajjan waved away such suggestions. Canada has a “capability gap,” he argued, and is unable to meet its Norad and NATO commitments.

He presented the new plan as a political solution to a national security problem.

The reality, of course, is that the Liberals have brought forward a political solution to solve a political problem of their own making.

The commander of the air force, Lt.-Gen Mike Hood, who was noticeable by his absence, previously told Parliament he needs just 65 aircraft to fulfil Canada’s commitments, so the capability gap argument is unconvincing.

Chief of the Defence Staff, Jonathan Vance, was present at Tuesday’s press conference and said the Air Force cannot meet its current missions and have the ability to respond to unforeseen circumstances. But really, what else was he going to say? This is a political decision and Vance is obliged to suck it up or resign.)

Hood told a parliamentary committee last spring that he was confident the Air Force could cope, if a decision on a replacement fleet was taken “in the next five years.”

That was why Foote, the procurement minister, said the government will undertake a lengthy competition “to avoid the mistakes of the past; we will not cut corners.”

Does that mean her department is cutting corners with the new warships that just went out to tender? A winner for the Canadian Surface Combatant program will be chosen by 2017.

Ottawa has already held two rounds of consultations with industry on the fighters. How much more is there to learn? Alan Williams, former assistant deputy minister of matériel at the Department of National Defence, has said a competition could produce results within a year.

But that would mean a winner could be chosen before the next election — an unacceptable political outcome for the Liberals.

Hence the curious solution of Canada now “exploring” the acquisition of 18 new Super Hornets with Boeing.

“Before proceeding, the government reserves the right to decide if they can provide the interim fleet at a cost, time, level of capability and economic value that is acceptable to Canada,” said the official news release.

But surely that decision has already been taken. If there were any doubts about Boeing’s ability to deliver or about the price, why make the announcement?

Foote said the Super Hornet was chosen because it is “not in development,” a veiled reference to the F-35, even though the U.S. air force declared its first squadron of F-35A fighters combat ready in August.

What is clear is that the interim purchase will reduce the amount available to buy a replacement fleet. The government had previously earmarked $9 billion for 65 new jets. Foote could not say what the interim purchase would cost and Sajjan would not say how many jets the Air Force might still need, after the interim purchase of 18 new planes.

But we do know Kuwait bought 40 full-loaded Super Hornets, with support, equipment and training, for US$10.1 billion this week.

We also know that the 18 jets will be more expensive than they might have been, had the downward pressure on costs of a competition not been removed.

By sole sourcing from Boeing, the government may well have skewed the outcome of any future competition. The purchase of new Super Hornets will mean the RCAF will be operating a mixed fleet. The two jets share common weapons systems but have different engines, radar and electronics. Is the government willing to complicate things further, with the attendant cost implications, of adding a third jet to the mix?

Foote said, “Anyone who meets the criteria and wants to compete will be able to compete.” Yet the Liberal platform was clear that the CF-18 replacement competition “will exclude requirements that do not reflect Canada’s interests such as first strike stealth capabilities” — for which read the F-35.

Yet what is apparent to anyone with eyes is that Canada’s interests have been supplanted by the Liberal Party of Canada’s interests.

We may never know which aircraft best suits Canada’s needs. But we can be in no doubt about which best favours Liberal fortunes.