F-35 purchase undecided, Fantino says

[mentalfloss]

I think he's tired of reading the script and getting pzwned in the house.

(Mckay: "derp?")


F-35 purchase undecided, Fantino says
Backing out of purchase 'not as yet discounted,' says procurement minister

Canada could reconsider an agreement to buy new F-35 joint strike fighter jets, Julian Fantino suggested Tuesday, as partner countries re-evaluate their own commitments.

"We have not as yet discounted, the possibility, of course, of backing out of any of the program," Fantino, associate minister of national defence, told the House defence committee Tuesday.

"None of the partners have. We are not. And we’ll just have to think it through further as time goes on, but we are confident that we will not leave Canada or our men and women in uniform in a lurch, but it’s hypothetical to go any further right now."

Fantino's comments mark a change in tone from previous answers to questions about the possibility of rising costs and design problems with the Lockheed Martin fighter jets. He had previously left no possibility the government is exploring other options or considering pulling out of the agreement with allies like the United States, Norway, Italy and Australia.

Fantino, the minister responsible for military purchasing, hosted a meeting in Washington, D.C., earlier this month with the partner countries involved in the initial agreement to buy the planes. Canada hasn't signed a contract guaranteeing the purchase.

Decision to buy 65 jets 'not as yet' made

Canada had planned to buy 65 jets for no more than $9 billion. The plan was to buy them at a specific point in the production cycle so that they were less expensive than the first planes to come off the line. But delays in production and partner countries cutting down their orders have increased costs, which would mean either spending more to get them on time or delaying their arrival.

"One of the things that I know for certain is that Canada remains involved in the joint strike fighter program," Fantino said. "The decision, the determinate decision, has not as yet been made as to whether or not we are going to actually purchase, buy, acquire, the F-35."

Speaking to reporters after the meeting, Fantino said Canada is committed to the program, but hasn't yet placed the order. "We're going to at some point and time make the definitive decision because, as I stated, we have not as yet signed a contract to purchase," he said.

F-35 purchase undecided, Fantino says - Politics - CBC News

 

[CDNBear]

I think he's tired of reading the script and getting pzwned in the house.

(Mckay: "derp?")

Funny how the CPC gets attacked for contemplating what the Usual Suspects wanted them to do in the first place.

Fuzzy, have you actually given up on trying to hide your lack of objectivity, partisanship, and hypocrisy?

Backing out of purchase 'not as yet discounted,' says procurement minister

Good to hear. With all the cost over runs, and issues with this aircraft. I think it's time we pulled the plug.

PoliticalNicks idea of the new Hornets would be much better.

 

[#juan]

Funny how the CPC gets attacked for contemplating what the Usual Suspects wanted them to do in the first place.

Fuzzy, have you actually given up on trying to hide your lack of objectivity, partisanship, and hypocrisy?

Good to hear. With all the cost over runs, and issues with this aircraft. I think it's time we pulled the plug.

PoliticalNicks idea of the new Hornets would be much better.

Oh God....You mean the new Hornets are demensionally, pretty much the same as the old Hornets
that we could re-use the old ground handling equipment. What a good idea. Of course by the time we
order the damn things the cost will have gone up to the point where we can only afford three of them..:lol:

PS. At one time the New Hornets were quite a bit cheaper than the F-35 so our order could conceivably
be increased from sixty to over a hundred but we better get off our asses.

 

[Bar Sinister]

If the Conservatives are really interested in cost-cutting, getting rid of the bloated F-35 contract would be a good place to start.

 

[dumpthemonarchy]

Smells like crash and burn are occurring here. It's hard to figure where the threat is. We need equipment to patrol the Arctic, and we don't even have one permanent base there. A base that doesn't have to be military base. It could be supplied by new zeppelins some guy is developing. We need to monitor who is crossing the Northwest Passage and we don't.

 

[B00Mer]

What would be the alternative or replace jet?? French, Swedish??

 

[mentalfloss]

What would be the alternative or replace jet?? French, Swedish??

Healthcare? Science? Fair treatment of military veterans?

 

[Bar Sinister]

What would be the alternative or replace jet?? French, Swedish??

Jets? Let's put this in perspective. Afghanistan is the longest military commitment in Canadian history. How often were Canadian jets used in this war?

Canada doesn't need jets. It needs troop deployment aircraft, helicopters for search and rescue and ground support, and long range patrol craft.

 

[mentalfloss]

Fantino? Tactical? :lol:

Fantino executes tactical retreat on F-35 jets

Julian Fantino has just executed a classic tactical manoeuvre: the quarter-turn retreat.

According to the junior defence minister, the Harper government is committed to the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, but not so much that it’s necessarily going to buy the things. Mr. Fantino’s definition of commitment would make a marriage counsellor blush.

The history of the F-35 program has been all about alliances, however. And Canada's allies in the F-35 program are parsing Mr. Fantino's words today. They'd be annoyed if Canada jumped ship.

That’s the real calculation Stephen Harper will weigh against rising financial costs. Buying stealth fighters with allies was a signal Canada wanted a role in future overseas air-combat missions. Mr. Harper has touted pledges that Canada will have a muscular military role, using Libya as an example, and allies have noticed.

In the meantime, Mr. Fantino reached a key political objective: putting some wiggle room into Canada's decision on the costly fighters. It’s a tactical retreat.

Two years ago, the Harper government made what was supposed to be an all-out commitment to the F-35s. Peter MacKay marched into a press conference to a military band and said Canada would buy 65. It stuck to that plan for more than a year as new information on ballooning costs made Ottawa’s $75-million-per-plane cost estimate unbelievable.

Mr. Fantino has watered that down since. He’s speculated Canada might buy fewer than the 65 fighters that the military says is the “minimum acceptable fleet.” He also said the life of the existing 80 CF-18 fighters, due to be retired between 2017 and 2020, could be extended. Now he’s raised the possibility of backing out altogether.

What would allies think of Canada backing out? “They’d be upset,” a diplomat from an F-35 ally said. Another said: “If any of the partners backs out, yes, it would be an issue. We’re all kind of thinking about and looking at what Mr. Fantino said yesterday. It would be a great disappointment if they took that decision. I don’t think they’re anywhere near taking that decision yet.”

Some allies have cut orders, but a country backing out altogether makes them all nervous. It opens the door for others to follow, and fewer fighters on order could lead to spiralling costs.

In fact, Mr. Fantino’s aides insist Canada’s commitment is unchanged. That’s the beauty of the quarter-turn: It’s camouflaged with ambiguity.

But it would be political madness for the Tories to say they’ll stick to the F-35s, no matter the cost, while preparing a budget full of cuts. Delays in F-35 production mean Ottawa might delay a decision four or five years, and it might even have to spend to extend the life of the CF-18s. And Mr. Fantino’s “ifs” open wiggle room in case costs force Ottawa to back out altogether.

The $9-billion they said they’d spend was supposed to buy 65 planes and a big package of parts and accessories, with the cost of maintaining the planes perhaps twice as much. That would blow a hole in the defence budget, but now 65 planes are likely to cost a lot more than $9-billion. Mr. Harper insisted Wednesday he is “prepared to live within that budget.”

But his government is still stuck as long as it insists on stealth fighters, because there isn’t another one available.

The nine allies banded together in the 1990s under U.S. leadership to develop an all-purpose stealth fighter-bomber and hand the work to one contractor, Lockheed Martin. Production of more than 3,000 planes was supposed to make it cheaper, but it also meant that when development hit problems, there was no other stealth fighter on the market.

If it was strictly a matter of defending Canadian air space, non-stealth planes would be considered. But the University of Ottawa’s Philippe Lagassé said that the main reasons Ottawa insisted on the stealth F-35, evading radars and exchanging data with allied planes, “are all about overseas.”

Is Mr. Harper going to back away from overseas air combat at the cost of weight with allies? Not as long as he can hold out for another way. Prof. Lagassé is betting on a split decision: Ottawa will spend to extend the life of a smaller fleet of CF-18s and buy a smaller fleet of F-35s. It’s imperfect and it really relies on hope there’ll be money for more F-35s years down the road. But a quarter-turn is easier than an about-face.

Fantino executes tactical retreat on F-35 jets - The Globe and Mail

 

[#juan]

When Canada bought 135 F-18s, I thought they were too expensive at fifty million each, and a hundred and thirty five was too few aircraft. Now we are talking about buying 65 F-35s which are going to cost at least a hundred and twenty million each. A hundred and twenty million each for aircraft that aren't as fast as the F-18s they are replacing. We are also buying the absolute cheapest version of the F-35 going. The logical choice was the Super Hornet which was a lot less expensive and could share quite a few parts with the CF-18s we have now. What has it cost us to wire ourselves into the F-35 boondoggle that we can't afford and that doesn't satisfy our needs?.

 

[mentalfloss]

Defence officials misled Parliament on F-35 deal: AG report

Canada’s new federal spending watchdog is set to deliver a scathing report on the F-35 fighter jet program early next month that will make distinctly unpleasant reading for the Conservative government.

The first draft of the report on replacing Canada’s fighter jets by new Auditor-General, Michael Ferguson, is said to charge the Department of National Defence with misleading Parliament, according to someone who has read it.

Neither DND nor the Auditor-General’s office would be drawn on the contents of the report ahead of its release on April 3.

But there are signs that the Harper government is already back-tracking on its previously unwavering support for the F-35s. At the Commons defence committee this week, Julian Fantino, the associate defence minister overseeing military procurement, said the government “has not as yet discounted the possibility of backing out of the program.” The F-35 purchase has been plagued with cost overruns and delays that have doubled the cost of each plane, according to some estimates.

Yet DND has been steadfast in its cost estimate of $75-million per plane. This compares to $128-million calculated by the Parliamentary Budget Office. In a report last year, the PBO said it was forced to speculate on how DND arrived at its figure. “Perhaps coincidentally, this figure reflects statements made by Lockheed Martin in 2001,” it concluded, somewhat tongue in cheek. There is, of course, no coincidence. People familiar with the procurement process say the Air Force simply ran with Lockheed Martin’s numbers and did very little due diligence of its own. This lack of legwork is not a new phenomenon. Liberal ministers were said to have been surprised to find out that DND accepted the British military’s statement of quality assurance when Canada bought four second-hand submarines from the Royal Navy. The submarine purchase has been an unmitigated disaster and whole fleet has been out of commission in dry dock for much of the past eight years.

The department has a similarly long-standing predisposition for bamboozling its political masters. Previous Auditor-General reports in 2006 and 2010 have blasted DND for deliberately low-balling costs, in order to get the kit it wants. Two years ago, Sheila Fraser concluded National Defence knew the Chinook heavy lift helicopter it wanted to buy was not an “off the shelf” model, with a relatively low risk of cost and time overruns. Yet the department did not reveal this to Treasury Board when it sought project approval. As a result, the cost of the 15 Chinooks more than doubled to $4.9-billion and the helicopters still have not been delivered.

A similar story accompanied the purchase of 28 maritime helicopters, according to Ms. Fraser, who lamented the gaps in the fullness of information supplied to MPs. “[DND] under-estimated and under-stated the complexity and developmental nature of the helicopters it intended to buy,” she said.

In her press conference, following the release of the 2010 report, Ms. Fraser was asked about the F-35 purchase. “Let’s hope nobody is assessing them as low risk,” she said. Yet, according to the people who have seen the new AG’s report, that appears to have been precisely what has happened. If the final version of the report emerges unchanged, after DND bureaucrats have done their best to sanitize it, the fall-out in Parliament may persuade the government the price of sticking with the F-35 program is no longer worth paying.

John Ivison: Defence officials misled Parliament on F-35 deal: AG report | National Post

 

[#juan]

When Canada bought 135 F-18s, I thought they were too expensive at fifty million each, and a hundred and thirty five was too few aircraft. Now we are talking about buying 65 F-35s which are going to cost at least a hundred and twenty million each. A hundred and twenty million each for aircraft that aren't as fast as the F-18s they are replacing. We are also buying the absolute cheapest version of the F-35 going. The logical choice was the Super Hornet which was a lot less expensive and could share quite a few parts with the CF-18s we have now. What has it cost us to wire ourselves into the F-35 boondoggle that we can't afford and that doesn't satisfy our needs?.

THe F-18 unit cost was roughly 35 million each rather than the 50 million I quoted. One thing this info does do is highlight the bloated cost of the F-35s.

 

[petros]

CF-18's did a bang up job in Libya.

 

[mentalfloss]

"Our intention is to receive the F-35 when it is most cost-effective and development is complete. And this is currently between 2017 and 2023, but this is something that we can and will adapt in order to achieve the best cost results."

F-35 delivery could be delayed to save money - Politics - CBC News