Ottawa’s Purchasing Delay of F-35 Jets ‘Severely Impacted’ Canadian Air Force: Former Defence Minister

A pilot manoeuvres an F-35 jet as military personnel participate in a NATO exercise on the aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth off the coast of Portugal, on May 27, 2021. (Ana Brigida /AP Photo)

The Liberal government’s long delay in purchasing F-35 fighter jets has impacted the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) “quite severely” and put Canada behind foreign military competition, says former defence minister Peter MacKay.

“The delay, of course, has impacted quite severely on the Royal Canadian Air Force in terms of recruitment and retention of pilots, fighter aircraft capability, and the world has changed,” MacKay told CTV News on Jan. 10.

The previous day, the federal government announced a $19-billion investment to purchase 88 of the stealth fighter jets from the American company Lockheed Martin to replace the RCAF’s outdated CF-18 Hornets.

The purchase comes almost eight years after the Liberal government vowed never to buy F-35 jets and about 12 years after Stephen Harper’s Conservative government announced intentions to procure 65 of the jets without competition in 2010.

MacKay, the minister who oversaw the Harper government’s initiative to buy the F-35s in 2010, says the jets are “quite critical at this moment” because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the poorly equipped state of Canada’s Arctic defence.

“The complexity of defending the Arctic, our commitments in Norad [North American Aerospace Defence Command], none of that has really changed,” he said. “If anything, it’s gotten more complex and more challenging, which is why frankly, without you know again making this a partisan issue, it’s why we made the determination that we needed the aircraft in 2012.”

‘Grows Darker’

Defence Minister Anita Anand echoed MacKay’s sentiment with regard to the urgency of the federal government’s procurement of the F-35 jets, citing also China’s “increasingly assertive behaviour in the Indo-Pacific” as another motivation for the purchase.

“As our world grows darker, with Russia’s illegal and unjustifiable attack on Ukraine, and China’s increasingly assertive behaviour in the Indo-Pacific, this project has taken on heightened significance,” Anand said during a press conference on Jan. 9.

The government’s $19-billion investment in the jets will also cover the cost of upgrading the Canadian military air force bases in Bagotville, Que., and Cold Lake, Alta., that the planes will be stationed at.

However, maintaining the planes over the next few decades will cost $70 billion, said a National Defence Department (NDN) official during a Jan. 9 briefing.

The jets will have operational abilities in Canada’s Arctic, Anand said, and are expected to fully phase out the RCAF’s use of CF-18 Hornets by the end of 2032.

Anand also said the F-35 jets will arrive in tranches, with the first four being ready for delivery by 2026, the next six in 2027, and the subsequent six in 2028.

However, since Canada’s air bases will not be prepared initially to accommodate the jets, they will temporarily located in the United States, NDN officials said.

The Canadian Press contributed to this report.