Not Getting Any Better Come at Once. Canada and F-35

The issue of Canada purchasing American fighters F-35 has been open for discussion for several years, used by the Liberal government to almost accuse the Conservatives of corruption on a massive scale. One of J. Trudeau’s pre-election promises was an urgent and complete refusal to purchase the «Lighting II». And one year after winning the elections, the new government made a proposal to buy a different aircraft–was this a planned action or a confusing half-measure?

The root of the problem leads to the history of Canada joining the Joint Strike Fighter–(JSF) program, which resulted in the creation of Lockheed Martin F-35 «Lightning II». It goes without saying that the Canadians immediately grew interested in the development program of a promising, popular, and export-oriented fighter–as JSF positioned itself as a fighter of the «free world», unlike the F-22 «Raptor», which was not even supposed to be sold by Americans (the export of this aircraft is banned by law). In 1997 Jean Chretien’s government (the leader of the Liberal party at that time) began paying some fees for the «partnership» program–modern Internet users would call it crowdfunding: participants pay money, make a «pre-order» for the goods, and receive a bonus–a discount, restricted data about the goods via «mailout», priority rights for purchase, and what’s most important–the country manufacturing industry taking part in the production. The last piece is the titbit bonus that promises stable income for decades ahead–you have to buy roughly fifty fighters, but the parts you produce will be installed on thousands of aircraft around the world! Of course, the joint aircraft development was intended here, but in reality, the major contribution is made by the Great Britain, who initially was the «first level partner».

aviationweek.com

So in 1997 the Liberals contributed a symbolic USD 10 million to join the program at the stage of the  competition–at that time there was a race between Boeing and Lockheed Martin with X-32 and X-35 accordingly. Lockheed Martin won in 2001 and the following year, Jean Chretien’s government paid USD 150 million to take part in the development stage of the future F-35. In July 2010 Stephen Harper’s conservative government announced its decision to purchase 65 F-35A fighter jets to replace the ageing fleet of F-18 «Hornet», which were purchased from the USA in 1982-88, when the opposing Liberal party attacked the decision and almost accused them of corruption, misappropriation of funds, and the wrong choice of an aircraft for Canada without letting other fighter manufacturers bid. At the same time the fact that he just kept the course of the government was merely ignored. Before the elections in 2011, the Liberal party promised to put an end to this contract, but they lost the elections.

While the aircraft development proceeded, Canadian companies were winning contracts to produce different components, e.g. hydraulics, machined parts, software development. Canadian industry had more than USD 925 million already contracted, more than double Canada’s current investment in the F-35 program. Nonetheless, the political squabbles interfered with the first F-35 purchase contract award for the Canadian Air Force to start the training for the pilots and mechanics. The Conservatives didn’t want to give rise for criticism and declared their plans to start the purchase after the elections. In October 2015 the Liberal party led by Justin Trudeau won the elections, one of their proclaimed promises was to end the ISIS combat mission as it «poses no threat to anyone» (according to Trudeau), to take more refugees, and to scrap the purchase of F-35 and instead have an «open and transparent competition» excluding F-35 from it.

Reuters

Prime Minister of Canada Justin Trudeau

No immediate decisions were made though–more than a hundred Canadian companies could stand to lose contracts, and the reaction that could follow from Canada walking away from the program was reputational and not economic, the comments that followed were explicit. Vague statements replaced pre-elections campaign rhetoric. In February 2016 Canadian society was surprised to find out that the government intended to make a payment of USD 33 million to remain part of the consortium, which is not a big amount of money, of course, while it is strange to spend it when it «no longer makes sense» to buy the fighter in the context of the recent remarks on complete waste of the taxpayers’ money by the previous government. Gradually the statements shifted to allowing «F-35 to be part of Canada’s next jet competition». Another challenge appeared–Canadian Air Force fleet was aging and the aircraft depleted their resources. The constant delays in making the decision could lead to the risk of the CF-18 «Hornet» aircraft ageing out before replacement.

So on November 22 Canada announced its «interim» decision. Canada will immediately explore the acquisition of 18 new Boeing F/A-18E/F «Super Hornet» aircraft to supplement part of the CF-18s until the permanent replacement arrives. A launch of an open and transparent competition was announced to replace the legacy fleet «within the current mandate» [1]. In this period Canada will remain part of the F-35 program consortium, paying the fees and implementing the contracts–in order to get the best purchasing conditions in case F-35 wins the bid.  Another USD 30.6 million payment was announced almost at the same time.

If you analyse this decision, it looks like the worst of all possible. Firstly, fleet replacement is put on hold again, ignoring the fact that the aircraft have exhausted their performance potential. Secondly, the government, which criticised the conservatives for their choice of an expensive aircraft without an open competition (not finding fault that the choice was made by J. Chretien’s liberals), sole-sourced the «interim» aircraft without any open competition. Thirdly, any open competition winner would be bad now [2]–in the case of the F-35, it is senseless to buy the «Super Hornet» jet now (that doesn’t come cheap, the contract is estimated at USD 3-4 billion with armament, spare parts, and staff training costs); if they stay with «Super Hornet» it means an exit from the F-35 production partner program at the stage when the production level and the number of jobs involved is still high.

Taking an unbiased look at the issue, this decision looks a cowardly buck-passing to the following government, that will not be bound by the promise of not buying a certain fighter jet. The situation not getting any easier will be a challenge for the new government. It is not the «Super Hornet» being the bad choice–given that the main task for Canadian Air Force over the last 60 years was to be the Northern Division of the USA air defence. «Super Hornet» looks appropriate in this way. It’s just a matter of the decision made and the way to follow it or to change it without putting its implementation on hold.

Half-measures seem to be characteristic of the current Canadian social liberals–they fulfilled a promise to withdraw the fighter jets from the Middle East (which took them 3 months, though), while the Ministry of Defence is posting the pictures of Canadian helicopters flying over Northern Iraq to its Facebook followers’ delight. And it’s hard to understand whether it is safer for the Canadian military to fly «a la Vietnam» at a low level with machine-guns, or it is more pacifist.

National Defence and the Canadian Armed Forces

Canadian helicopters over Iraq

1. The estimates are quite ambitious. A multi-capable shipboard helicopter CH-148 «Cyclone» is to be based on Canadian navy in 2018, while the competition it won started in 1986.

2. Officially the open competition will accept European aircraft producers as well, though Non-American manufacturers stand almost no chance to win.