Prime Minister Mark Carney has asked for a review of Canada’s plan to purchase a fleet of F-35 fighter jets.
The deal with Lockheed Martin and the U.S. government is for 88 planes at a cost of about US$85 million each.
A spokesperson for Defence Minister Bill Blair said Carney has asked Blair to look into whether the F-35 contract is the best investment for Canada, or if there are better options.
“We need to do our homework given the changing environment, and make sure that the contract in its current form is in the best interests of Canadians and the Canadian Armed Forces,” Blair’s press secretary Laurent de Casanove said.
Saab is offering to move part of the production to Canada, Trump might prevent US defense contractors from having facilities outside the US… So… Yeah
This is one of the reasons I really liked the Saab offer. Supporting a domestic aerospace defence industry is probably a good strategic aim.
GCAP would also offer a chance to foster our domestic aerospace industry.
There are other combinations that achieve much the same though. FCAS (Future Combat Air System) is similar to GCAP, a joint France, Germany and Spain project, but it isn’t scheduled to deliver until 2040.
I am in no position to know what’s “best”, but it’s undeniable that there are some good options. It’s unfortunate though that there will be a cost to pay that we went with F-35 all those years ago. Still don’t have a Canadian F-35 in the air.
Another piece of trivia, that I really don’t know if significant is that Sweden nearly joined GCAP. If we went with Gripen and GCAP, and Sweden rejoined GCAP there might be opportunities for long term partnerships. Then again I think there are similar opportunities with Eurofighter and FCAS.