Military procurement politicized — again

What to make of the Liberal government’s decision to explore the purchase of 18 Boeing Super Hornet warplanes, as an interim measure until a permanent next-generation fighter can be found? As a stopgap, and if one ignores indications that military procurement is once again being treated as a political plaything, it may represent an acceptable compromise. But it smells an awful lot like the kind of behaviour for which the Liberals used to slam the Tories.

Adding the 18 Super Hornets — a squadron of 12, plus spares — to the Air Force fleet makes sense in the short term. Canada’s current fleet of CF-18 Hornets, an older, less advanced version of the Super Hornet — is aging. Despite costly upgrades, there is only so much life that can be squeezed out of any aircraft. Attrition has reduced the fleet since the early 1980s. Canada now has only 48 of the jets routinely assigned to frontline squadrons, with a mission availability rate of roughly 70 per cent.

Given that reality, the arithmetic is simple — 48 jets times 70 per cent is 34, rounded up to the nearest jet. That’s not exactly an armada, especially considering the vastness of Canada’s landmass, its far-flung air approaches, and its commitments to NORAD and our NATO allies. Our 34 jets simply aren’t enough to go around, and that number will only dwindle further.

Acquiring the Super Hornets is a quick fix to this problem. The Super Hornets are fearsome aircraft, already in use as the carrier-borne attack aircraft of the United States Navy. Their general similarity to the CF-18s will make their introduction a reasonably straightforward affair. Given the challenging international outlook facing Canada and its allies, and the very real prospect of U.S. president-elect Donald Trump calling on allies that lag on defence spending — Canada very much included — to get serious about security, buying the jets makes sense.

But, and this is critical, it can serve only as a temporary measure. There is a very real danger that the purchase, if completed, will lull this government or a successor into believing that selecting a true replacement for the CF18, and acquiring it in large numbers, is no longer an urgent national priority. It is. Eighteen Super Hornets buys the government time, but not much. And it shouldn’t pretend otherwise.

Politics, of course, plays a big role in this decision. The Liberals made two conflicting promises during the past election campaign, and have struggled to find a way to honour them both. On the one hand, they committed to holding a fair and open competition to determine Canada’s next warplane. But they also (bizarrely) pledged that the Lockheed F-35 Lightning, a jet developed with substantial Canadian participation, would not be purchased. The fact that one cannot hold a fair and open competition with a major contender already excluded seemed not to trouble the party brass, but has certainly proved an obstacle in government. There is much reasonable speculation suggesting the Liberals chose to proceed with an interim purchase simply to buy themselves time to escape this trap of their own making. Choosing the Super Hornet also suggests the Trudeau government is in the process of stacking the deck in favour of that jet in any future “fair and open” competition.