Ex-MP Laurie Hawn resigns honorary military role after criticizing Super Hornets buy

Kristen Everson · CBC News

Laurie Hawn, Canada's first CF-18 fighter pilot and a former Conservative MP, says he was asked to resign his position as honorary colonel after he criticized the government's decision to buy up to 18 Super Hornet fighter jets.

Hawn revealed the move in a message posted to Facebook Monday night.

"Speaking truth to power can be risky. I re-confirmed that this week by speaking out rather more forcefully than was appreciated to the commander of the RCAF and the chief of defence staff," he wrote.
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Hawn has been critical of the government's decision to buy the Super Hornets as an interim measure to fill what it calls a capability gap in Canada's air force. In his Facebook post, Hawn called the gap "fabricated," arguing the decision to buy the interim jets was "100 per cent politically motivated."

Hawn favours Lockheed Martin's F-35 Stealth Fighter as a long-term replacement for the CF-18s.

A U.S. Navy Super Hornet circles Naval Air Station Oceana, in Oceans, Va. in late January. Canada has opened negotiations for the sole-source purchase of 18 of the advanced jet fighters. (Murray Brewster/CBC)

Hawn said he sent the commander of the Royal Canadian Air Force, Lt.-Gen. Michael Hood, and Chief of Defence Staff Jonathan Vance an email on Friday outlining his concerns, including his view that the interim purchase of the Super Hornets is "a waste of money and time and is something, in my view, that will ultimately kill the fighter (jet) force."

CBC News has not seen the email, but Hawn said his post on Facebook included the essence of his message in a condensed version.

CBC has reported the cost of the interim Super Hornet program could run between $5 to $7 billion, based on data being studied within National Defence. Those numbers are preliminary but are backed up by U.S. congressional budget information. The government maintains there is no price tag for the new fleet yet and is currently in negotiations with the U.S. government.
Super Hornets decision 'wrong'

In an interview, Hawn said the air force commander was already aware of his concerns, but said his email might have been "too specific and direct" for the military's liking. Hawn said that after some back and forth, Hood asked for his resignation on Saturday.

Hawn said he was disappointed but wasn't surprised he was asked to resign. As for Hood and Vance, Hawn said "their hands are kind of tied by what the government's doing. And in my view what the government is doing is entirely wrong."

In an email to CBC News, a spokesperson for the air force said Hood asked for Hawn's resignation "as political advocating is not compatible with continued service as an honorary colonel."

The spokesperson also pointed to a section in the honorary colonel's handbook, which advises that those holding the position should "remain outside any public controversy concerning the Canadian Armed Forces... and never use the appointment to promote political opinion."

Hawn was appointed honorary colonel of 401 Tactical Fighter Squadron, based out of Cold Lake, Alta., in October 2015. He was recommended for the position by former chief of defence staff Tom Lawson and his appointment was approved then defence minister Jason Kenney and the Prime Minister's Office.
'More to follow'

Honorary colonels do not hold any command or authority. They are generally former officers or distinguished Canadians and their function is to promote the unit or squadron they are attached to and assist with ceremonial events and "fostering esprit de corps" or morale.

Hawn is a retired air force lieutenant-colonel, serving for 30 years before sitting as an Edmonton MP from 2006-2015. He was parliamentary secretary to the minister of defence for three-and-a-half years and served on the defence committee. He didn't run for re-election in 2015.

Hawn said he will continue to be outspoken about the Liberal government's decision to purchase an interim fleet.

"Most Canadians may not really care about Super Hornet versus F-35, but I think they do care about the waste of billions of dollars for very little return, especially if it's purely in the name of politics.

"More to follow," he wrote on Facebook.

Former MP and RCAF Pilot Hawn Expresses his concerns over Super Hornet Stop-Gap

By: Laurie Hawn. PC, CD (Lt. Col Ret) 

Speaking truth to power can be risky...

I re-confirmed that this week by speaking out rather more forcefully than was appreciated to the Commander of the RCAF and the Chief of the Defence Staff, on the issue of the CF-18 replacement. This is a condensation of some of my main points, and I know that senior military leaders have their hands tied. As followers will know, I have been very critical of the 100% politically motivated plan to buy 18 “interim” Super Hornets for some time and the story only gets worse.

We could fill the fabricated “capability gap” with 27 F-18C/D aircraft from Kuwait at the bargain basement price of $330 million, but we’re not pursuing it. We could also upgrade our 76 CF-18s to Super Hornet system status for about 20% of what it will cost us to buy 18 Super Hornets. Rather than pursue either of those options, we’d rather waste about USD 5.4 Billion on 18 aircraft with no real increase in capability. The cost of 90 F-35As will be USD 8.5 Billion (USD 94.6 million per) in the latest contract; and that unit cost will come down to USD 85 million by the time we should be receiving our first aircraft about 2020. What is wrong with this picture?

The F-18C is virtually identical to our CF-18s, while the Super Hornet is very different in size, radar, engines, mission computers and other systems. We don’t have the qualified technicians, pilots and support capacity to manage our current fleet; and adding a dissimilar fleet will make a very difficult job impossible. We are losing pilots to release at a rate that is unsustainable, and there is no ether that we can dip into to hive off more to get trained on the Super Hornet.

Neither the CF-18 nor Super Hornet actually has the kinematics to properly execute our primary mission of peacetime air sovereignty, with commercial aircraft operating above 40,000 feet. F-35 can properly execute that mission, and many more. The real experts were not consulted and, in fact, 240 of them have been muzzled with lifetime non-disclosure agreements. Why would a government with nothing to hide do that? The answer is that they wouldn’t, and this government has a lot to hide. It would be nice if the Auditor General and the Ethics Commissioner would take an interest. The options analysis that was conducted and clearly showed F-35 to be the answer has been suppressed, because it didn’t conform to the Prime Minister’s foolish and inaccurate statements during and since the 2015 campaign. And you thought that Donald Trump was the only purveyor of “alternate facts”.

Super Hornet also has serious safety concerns with the oxygen system that has resulted in 297 (reported) incidents that have resulted in the permanent grounding of some aircrew. Can we afford that and has anyone done a risk analysis of operating Super Hornet?

An open and fair competition could be started tomorrow and take no more than a year; but the government wants to kick the can down the road until after the next election. If the Statement of Requirements (SOR) is not “modified” to eliminate F-35, that aircraft would win any fair competition, just as it has in so many other cases. There’s good reason to believe that the SOR is being “massaged”. There will be nothing interim about a Super Hornet buy. Even if F-35 were to win a rigged competition, the sudden realization will be that, “Gosh, we just cannot afford a mixed fleet and we’ll just have to buy more Super Hornets.” The first part of that statement would be correct – we cannot afford a mixed fleet of Super Hornet and F-35 down the road, just as we cannot afford a mixed fleet of CF-18 and Super Hornet today.

The latest bit of insanity is that we are looking at buying two-seat Super Hornets and putting navigators in the back seat as Weapons System Operators (WSO). Our primary mission is air defence and there are no two-seat air defence fighters in the world today. There is a reason for that - navigators in fighters and many other applications have been overtaken by technology years ago. To be sure, fighter pilots will also eventually be overtaken by technology; but for the next few decades they have a job to do. We have no capacity to train WSOs, even if someone did invent a reason to want to do so.

The bottom line is that we can’t afford to do what we’re doing for a wide variety of reasons – Canadian sovereignty and security, financial, technical, personnel, moral, alliance support, Canadian industry, etc. If we carry on, I firmly believe and many others share my belief that we will kill the fighter force. I simply can’t support that and my conscience will not let me stay silent and be deemed complicit by that silence. I have been in and around the RCAF for 53 years and it is soul destroying to see what is happening in the name of politics. As anticipated, my vocal opposition to the plan was not well received by the most senior leadership of the RCAF and Canadian Armed Forces. I was asked to resign my position of Honourary Colonel of 401 Tactical Fighter Squadron (the oldest Squadron in the RCAF, 20 Nov 1918). That, I dutifully did, but since I’m not important enough to have a sword, I just fell on my pen-knife.

I will continue to advocate for what I think is in the best interests of the RCAF, Canada, our aerospace industry AND taxpayers. Most Canadians may not really care about Super Hornet versus F-35, but I think they do care about the waste of billions of dollars for very little return, especially if it’s purely in the name of politics.