OTTAWA—The Senate defence committee released a report May 8 blasting the Trudeau government’s “political decision” to purchase Super Hornet fighter jets, while all but endorsing the F-35 stealth fighter.
The report was the second in a series published by the committee over the last month, the first of which called on the government to double defence spending to 2 percent of GDP over the next decade.
This latest volume provided a veritable laundry list of items that senators felt the government should buy with the extra $20 billion such an increase in spending would entail.
That included purchasing 12 new submarines, acquiring attack helicopters, and increasing the Air Force fighter-jet fleet to 120, among other things.
The committee also said it had concluded, based on concerns raised by a dozen retired air force officers, that buying 18 Super Hornets to temporarily augment the aging CF-18 fleet was unnecessary.
The government says the Super Hornets are urgently needed because of a shortage of airworthy CF-18s, but opposition critics and others allege the plan is actually part of a larger effort to avoid having to buy the F-35.
