military could be paying north of C$10 million in ongoing maintenance costs per year. Government Accountability Office found that the U.S. In 2011, Canada projected it would pay around C$5 million per plane per year in maintenance costs. Since then, the F-35 has only become more expensive. Trudeau’s Liberal Party used cost to justify axing the initial sole-source contract. The rubric for deciding who wins bakes down to three things: cost, worth 20 percent of the grade economic benefits for Canada, also worth 20 percent and capability, worth 60 percent. Does Canada pick the jet it planned to buy six years ago, raising questions over all the time and money spent seemingly for naught? Does it go with the more affordable model that doesn’t offer the same raft of capabilities? Or does it opt for the budget option?Ĭanadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau attends a plenary session during G-7 summit in Carbis Bay on June 13, 2021, in Cornwall, United Kingdom. There is no clear choice ahead for the Trudeau government - or whoever may replace him later this month. The Canadian military will need to have the fleet fully operational by 2032, when Canada’s existing fleet of CF-18s - some of which it acquired in the 1980s and others it leased from Australia in recent years - is slated to go offline. Upgrades are planned for an air force base in Cold Lake, Alb., to house the jets. Ottawa expects the first jets to arrive, no matter who supplies them, by 2025. The Canadian government is budgeting between C$15 billion and C$19 billion to acquire 88 jets, train personnel to fly and sustain the aircraft - the true lifetime cost will almost certainly be significantly higher. By 2019, both French aeronautics company Dassault and the British firm Airbus had withdrawn, leaving the two American companies and the Swedish Saab. The race to pick Canada’s next fighter jets didn’t begin in earnest until December 2017, with five companies joining - including, despite his initial promise, Lockheed Martin. When Trudeau took office in 2015, however, he canceled the sole-source contract as promised - even as he kept Canada in the development project - and prepared to open the competition to other companies. The competition pits Lockheed Martin’s jet, believed to still be the favored choice of the Canadian air force against Boeing’s F/A-18 Block III Super Hornet, the next generation of Canada’s existing fleet and the Saab Gripen, the underdog in the competition.Ĭanada had originally planned to sole-source the F-35, even joining the development program for the American plane.
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