The news that Canada intends to buy the F-35 fighter jet, almost 12 years after it first announced that it intends to buy the F-35 fighter jet, might actually be the most Justin Trudeau thing Justin Trudeau has ever done.
Canada’s investment in what was initially called the “Joint Strike Fighter” program actually started under the Liberals. The program has undeniably run into major, embarrassing development problems, but began as a pretty good concept. The NATO alliance had just undertaken a series of air campaigns over Bosnia in the five years between 1992 and 1997, which included air-to-air combat and strikes on ground targets. These missions, both in the air and on the ground, revealed stark discrepancies between the capabilities of the various allied militaries in the wake of the end of the Cold War. Interoperability of alliance forces became a necessary focus. A jet that would be used in large numbers by the United States and across the alliance was an obvious advantage. […]
As early as 2008, the Department of National Defence was telling the government that the F-35 was the only plane that could do what our air force needed a fighter jet to do. They continued to do this for seven more years. Almost 14 years ago we were all told this was the only plane that fit our needs as a next generation fighter aircraft. A child born when the memo to report that conclusion was delivered is now a teenager.
When we announced plans for an order of 65 F-35s in 2010, that should have been the end of it. All the lessons of past procurement disasters should have told everyone with any serious aspirations of national leadership that reversing this contract could cripple an air force that was already flying planes past their best-before date. Instead we got five years of hand-wringing that put on display the worst of Ottawa’s ability to talk only to itself. It started under the Harper government; stung by criticism over the cost and accusations it had rushed to sole-source the deal, the Conservatives wavered, and then folded: they cancelled the plan to buy the 65 F-35s and chose to hold a competition instead. In the next election, the Trudeau Liberals ran against purchasing the F-35, won the election, and did nothing to pick an alternate successor plane, as the CF-18s got older and older.
This continued for seven years. Bringing us to today.
Your morning flashback.
F35s in 2015. It was all just a skit. pic.twitter.com/zfaa68VPm0
— James Moore (@JamesMoore_org) March 29, 2022
Remind me: didn’t the Chretien Lips do the same thing with the helicopters, i.e., slam the Tories for the cost, then ultimately buy basically the same ones, at a higher cost?
If the cons sign the deal the libs don’t get the “commission”
Yes , but even worse was Chretien buying second-hand junk British submarines , which in the end never worked properly after spending a huge amount to refurbish them.
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/jeffrey-f-collins-without-plan-for-new-submarines-canada-faces-defence-gap-in-the-arctic
Yup, reading the article I was immediately reminded of the helicopter debacle.
Liberals are always willing to spend big, with two exceptions – anything initiated by previous Conservative governments, and anything military, which gave them double reason to campaign against the deal.
Quote: “The cost was a half-billion dollars, which was then — and still is — basically a rounding error in the federal budget.”
The Liberals just spent a deficit amounting to something in the neighborhood of $368 billion whose purpose was primarily to buy votes. For that money they could have gotten a fleet of 736 F-35s.
(Now it’s 88 planes for only $19 billion?)
Will they have to be made or assembled in Quebec?
And the GST!
I take my stylo and write Non.
What’s a few mellion dollars?
Caligula Jones: Bingo. It’s deja vu all over again. Libs don’t give a rat’s ass about the Canadian Forces except when they want photo ops.
It doesn’t matter. Canada’s procurement system is broken. They, the government, can say anything they want because it will take decades to deliver, if at all. I worked on the project to replace out replenishment ships – back in 1988. 34 years later? Nada.
Canada’s procurement system is broken.
Yup, speaking from personal experience. Many years ago, I worked for a firm that was a subcontractor to the Forces for a specific system.
With all the horsing around that I saw, I’m not sure if the project was ever completed.
19 billion dollars = 88 state of the art F35 fighter jets.
20 billion dollars = canada,s annual NET profit from the province of Alberta.
Just saying.
That’s about how much Quebec gets in excess transfer payments. We should just buy the jets and increase Alberta’s transfer payments. And if alberrans complain call them racist haters who don’t want to defend Canada. Sounds stupid but that’s how things work here.
I don’t think the F35 should be the choice of any air force …
https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidaxe/2021/02/23/the-us-air-force-just-admitted-the-f-35-stealth-fighter-has-failed/
Maybe this is why the Libs are again interested: an expensive fighter that doesn’t work well.
One of the problems with the F-35 was that it was presented like the F-111 originally was: a solution for every service. It tried to do too much and had too many bells and whistles.
well, the journalist is using his inferometer to claim that the program failed, to wit:
“Brown’s comments are a tacit admission that the F-35 has failed.”
not something Brown said, but what the reporter inferred.
and one of the biggest concerns is budget, the air force needs a lot of planes, but doesn’t have the budget for them at 100 million per copy, so looking for a cheaper plane makes sense, that’s one of the things that killed off F22 production
This decision was made with a caveat, which is a delaying tactic.
They are hoping the events in Ukraine cool down enough to fall off the radar so they can shelve the program again.
Sock monkey is personally invested in not purchasing the F35. Now events have dragged him kicking and screaming like a toddler having to eat his vegetables.
His supporters are equally pleased mostly because it brings back memories of Stephen Harper, a memory they have been strenuously trying to subdue.
They hate this and want it to go away.
PERFECTLY Demonstrating LIBERAL Malfeasance, Stupidity, Arrogance and Fucking Cowardice…..no.?
And we will see them when exactly..??
And the new Side arms …? Pilots will need them too.? maybe 2030 ….
What a joke of a country “led” by an even bigger joke
(A flat out Disgusting Embarrassment in fact)
Seems to me the F-35 has proven itself to be one of the least reliable most expensive warplanes of all time. If Canada were to get in a serious war involving defence of the homeland rather than blowing things up in other countries, whether we had F-35’s, F-16’s or F-18’s would make no difference. We would lose. There are other cheaper more effective (but maybe less flashy) alternatives out there that would suffice for our government’s mission of posturing.
“Seems to me the F-35 has proven itself to be one of the least reliable most expensive warplanes of all time. “
From the bits & pieces I’ve read about it, I get the same impression.
‘Sides, I don’t like the single engine config.
A single engine is less of.an issue than you think. They usually fail in two modes: flameout or carastrophic failure. The first is eliminated with drve by wire. The pilot cannot push it past its envelope.
On the second issue, this usually results in a total loss regardless of amount of engines.
All this & an ex-fighter pilot, too!
Who knew?
Musta been some disappointment, downgrading from a coupla GE F404’s to a Cummins and a Roadranger…
Well since history always starts today in Trudeaupia, it doesn’t matter. Actually it never happened
Kind of reminds me of a guy I worked with a long time back who had escaped Communist Hungary . His favorate saying was … “Everything government touch turn to ashes”.
He experienced it first hand under Soviet rule.
Deep in the grossly overpopulated federal civil service, hundreds, if not thousands, of bureaucrats and military desk jockeys have been “working” day-in and day-out on this project for over 14 years, but Canada has yet to have a replacement plane for the CF-18. Not to worry, though, those highly paid employees have been kept very busy with language training, gender sensitivity courses, writing and re-writing job descriptions, dealing with thousands of grievances from unionized employees, negotiating labour contracts, and numerous re-organizations, to name but a few of the priority activities that must be carried out before a pilot can even enter the cockpit of a new fighter jet. Needless to say, none of this has anything to do with actually building, operating or maintaining the plane. That will come later, much later.
“ or maintaining the plane. ”
You don’t know?
There will be a competition and there will be a comparison of capabilities of the various companies after which the minister responsible will be called into the PMO and told that the contract goes to the company in Montreal.
Just like the last time.
Standby for heavier rolling, erm stupidity, as Trudeau launches his much anticipated Climate Action Plan in Vancouver today. We are doomed.
It’s absolutely insane to me that someone would look at the political leadership of this country and decide it’d be a good idea to join the military. These people will absolutely send you to die poorly equipped for pure political expediency.
If we are going to be giving them away to The Ukraine, shouldn’t we be purchasing MiGs?
Yep … “backfill” your Air Force like Bidinh promised to backfill Poland’s
They should rename it the F-42 and then raise the price.
Is that the one that’s vagina shaped?
Don’t laugh, Junior is probably of the learned opinion that, yes, the higher the plane’s number, the better it is…
Which means we’ll probably get those CF-101 Voodos again.
The F-18s are coming up to 40 years old, and they are in fairly ropey condition. My son was a mechanic on the F-18 and he said they were getting close to the end of their fatigue life (and that was nearly 10 years ago).
If the F-18 replaced a 40-year-old front-line fighter, it would have been replacing the Spitfire! The CF-100, 101, 104 etc would never have happened.
Which is the one the Canadian airmen called ‘ten thousand nuts and bolts flying in loose formation’?
I think it was the 100.
65 planes for a country the size of kanada, is a bloody joke, nuff said
Size as in … ? Land area? Or number of war-torn “refugees” taken-in each year?
Just wondering how much more expensive they a0re now ,especially when you add the cost of the temporary F18s.
Anyone care to consider the circumstances surrounding this decision?
Review of recent history.
-liberals merge unofficially with the NDP
-the sock monkey going off to Europe for a resume building exercise that goes off the rails
-NATO members are falling over themselves to put actual hardware in the field while the sock monkeys foreign minister tells the world our contribution is the ability to organize a really good meeting over tea and buns.
So my guess is, that after the sock monkey made his speech before the EU Parliament he was told in no uncertain terms that unless he started pulling his weight instead of serving word salad he should not bother showing up for the meetings with the adults.
Further, this is not a decision he wanted to make, even worse for him, under duress.
Right now there are a lot of liberals looking for some credible shred of logic to claim this isn’t happening.
I also sense a ton of red pills are being digested as we speak.
Look at this from the progressive left pov.
They oppose any defence spending no matter the circumstances.
Right now they don’t have anyone to oppose this as the NDP has agreed they won’t oppose supply measures.
If you need another perspective, I offer the following.
It’s like the federal election when the “conservative” leader backtracks on a campaign plank because they encountered criticism and those that would vote conservative feel they just got thrown under the bus.
It doesn’t matter what Harper did before, the sock monkey now has ownership.
And his supporters feel they just got railroaded.
No Joseph, his supporters are celebrating that he just finagled a majority out of the smallest ever minority win!
With due respect for your opinion, and concur wrt what his supporters are saying outwardly I refer to my statement
“ Right now there are a lot of liberals looking for some credible shred of logic to claim this isn’t happening.”
Of course they are saying what a great thing this is and at the same time twisting any criticism as opposition to getting hardware for the airforce.
But the point is that the progressives are gob smacked and feel like those Bernie Sanders supporters after Biden threw them under the bus.
These same supporters likely fell over themselves in 2015 to push the “wrong jet” talking point because Harper.
Now they are trying to lighten the blow without admitting that the sock monkey is recanting on a key platform.
It’s not about those that won’t vote for him, it’s about the lack of enthusiasm of his supporters after he does this.
They just won’t admit it.
I kid you not … during the VietNam war … when I was in middle school here in the leftist SF Bay Area … my middle school History teacher instructed us that Canada was a NEUTRAL country. He said, that’s why all our boys are fleeing the draft in Canada.
Yes, there are many things I needed to unlearn from my public school education.
Actually, the Weather Underground trained on Canadian soil, and there is of course the ambient personal hostility toward us, almost all of which takes place in Ontario…. I would actually say that Canada is manifestly not anti-American if you exclude Ontario, whose economy depends on shilling goods to …. guess who.
Joe: I live in Ontario near Toronto. When Bin Laden attacked the US on 9/11 Canadians were united in full support of our wounded American cousins. We subsequently went to war with you in Afghanistan as a clear demonstration of that support. We have much more in common than we have differences. For instance, both countries currently have terrible leadership. 🙂
We should buy some more of those flammable submarines from Britain.
The Florida National Guard, could invade, capture, and occupy Canada in a long weekend, and be back to work on Tuesday.
John Q. That’s what the Russians said about Ukraine, eh. Didn’t President James Madison mutter similar things at the outset of the war of 1812, when the US unsuccessfully invaded Canada?
I prefer to look on Americans as allies and good friends (and I live in Ontario). Just saying.
It is too bad Wil Smith wasn’t in the audience back then to immediately head up to the podium and slap Trudeau for such a bad joke.
A flying Sherman ? Make a million ofem.
Why not just strip the F-35 doodads?
Who needs a backup cam? Lousy drivers.
Putin & Zelenskyy are using up old T72’s first. Too bad about the Antonov AN-225…
Seem to remember the Conservatives being beaten by the press over the cost of the F35. Actual costs, it was asserted, must include life cycle costs including the pilot. Thus the $19 Billion for 65 planes was hiding the truth and a boondoggle. The cost should be stated as $40 Billion. Now ten years later the cost is back to $19 billion for 88 planes and no one in the press batts an eye? Seriously? Costs of 65 planes, 23 extra planes, spares, life cycle maintenance costs, cost of a twenty five year procurement program, inflation, government interference and we are still accepting the $19 billion?
Why do we need warplanes when our prime minister is so godlike?.
“A jet that would be used in large numbers by the United States and across the alliance was an obvious advantage.”
Bad for Canada. We need speed, range and firepower, not a joint-strike fighter.
If we can procure anything, that’s a milestone.
But we haven’t gotten anything yet.
What happened is that the sock monkey just recanted on one of his favourite digs at Harper.
Now the sock monkey basically admitting he was wrong all along and Harper was right.
Oh and another thing.
I see the Truanon is going with a talking point in question form asking “well what planes did Harper get for the airforce?”
Answer
They are called C17’s and they do heavy lift.
Something we didn’t have when a previous liberal government pledged to send relief to Indonesia but then had to wait around for a ride for a couple weeks for an Antov.
Finished adding this to the list of liberal lies and broken promises.
It’s a pretty long list.
Du-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-h-hhhhhhh
Why doesn’t Justy ‘whip out his F-18s’ and go kick Putin’s ass?
https://nationalpost.com/news/world/israel-middle-east/trudeau-accuses-harper-government-of-trying-to-whip-out-our-cf-18s-and-show-them-how-big-they-are-in-iraq
Joe: I live in Ontario near Toronto. When Bin Laden attacked the US on 9/11 Canadians were united in full support of our wounded American cousins. We subsequently went to war with you in Afghanistan as a clear demonstration of that support. We have much more in common than we have differences. For instance, both countries currently have terrible leadership. 🙂