“Our fleet of CF-18s need to be replaced now. And the fact they have not been replaced means we are facing a capability gap in the years ahead,” Mr. Sajjan said in a speech on Thursday morning.
“Now, we did not create this issue. Unfortunately, I inherited it, but it needs to be dealt with quickly,” he said, blaming the previous Conservative government for failing to buy a replacement plane.
Mr. Sajjan made the comments at the CANSEC defence and military trade show in Ottawa, where the world’s biggest aircraft manufacturers are lobbying federal officials on the merits of their respective product.
Lockheed Martin, which makes the F-35 stealth fighter, has a large presence at CANSEC, despite the Liberal Party’s promise in the last election not to buy its airplane.
Speaking to reporters, Mr. Sajjan refused to state whether any aircraft manufacturer will be prevented from bidding on the multi-billion-dollar contract.
“As I said from the get-go, right now my focus is on making sure that our men and women in the Air Force have the right capabilities and my focus is replacing the F-18s,” Mr. Sajjan said, refusing to lay out a specific timeline for the purchase. (end of excerpt)
Click here for the full story, on the Defense News website.
(EDITOR’S NOTE: Replacing the CF-18s may be urgent, as the minister says, but ordering their replacement can apparently wait, according to his department.
“Canada, which has repeatedly put off a decision on replacing its aging CF-18 fighter jets, could be in a position to order a fleet of new planes by 2020, its defense department said on Thursday,” Reuters reported May 26.
“In a guide to defense firms posted online, the Department of National Defence said it hoped to award the contract between 2018 and 2020 and said the final jets should be delivered between 2026 and 2036.”
However, “a department spokeswoman said the guide was preliminary and the dates could easily change,” Reuters added.)
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