Canada to Draft New Requirements for Future Fighter

The Government of Canada remains committed to building a more agile, better-equipped military, while ensuring best value for Canadians, and leveraging defence procurement to create jobs and economic growth for Canada.

Over the summer, government officials from National Defence, Public Services and Procurement Canada, and Innovation, Science and Economic Development, will be consulting all interested aircraft suppliers in order to gather the most current, up-to-date, and accurate information on the various aircraft options available to meet Canada’s defence needs. All interested potential suppliers are welcome to participate in the consultation process in order to present the best information on available fighter aircraft to support the Government of Canada in making its decision on various options for the replacement of Canada’s fleet of CF-18s.

Conducting an early consultation at the front-end of a procurement process will also provide the Government with the information necessary to assess risks and analyze options for the replacement of Canada’s fleet of CF-18s.

The Government will be seeking information on issues such as costs, delivery times, interoperability with NORAD, readiness, and the potential benefits for the Canadian economy.

Specific information being sought includes up-to-date information on:
-- Capabilities
-- Readiness
-- Availability
-- Infrastructure compatibility
-- Acquisition costs
-- Sustainment/maintenance
-- Life-cycle costs
-- Economic benefits

In addition, officials will be meeting with allies regarding their user experiences with aircraft options and their capabilities, experience with potential aircraft suppliers, and lessons learned through recent replacement process and/or decisions. Canada anticipates being able to use these discussions to further validate information received from industry.

The Government of Canada will consult allied Governments and interested potential suppliers in a number of ways including one-on-one meetings, questionnaires, and site-visits. The first formal consultations will take place starting next week when officials meet with suppliers and government representatives at the Farnborough Airshow in the United Kingdom between July 11 and 14, 2016. The information received will be integral to shaping Canada’s way forward on this file.

Following an analysis of the up-to-date information obtained as a result of the consultation process, the Government of Canada will assess the available options for the replacement of the CF-18s as soon as possible.

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OTTAWA --- Ottawa will scrap the requirements that were developed by the Canadian Forces and used by the previous Conservative government to justify the sole-source purchase of F-35s, giving itself leeway to buy another aircraft to replace Canada’s aging fleet of CF-18s.

The move stands to change the outcome of one of the biggest and most controversial military procurements in Canadian history.

The federal government will ask the Forces to develop new criteria for the $10-billion contract six years after the first set was delivered, giving Ottawa unusual power over the procurement process. It allows the Liberal government to launch a competition for new fighter jets while knowing the contract will not go directly to the aircraft that it has so often criticized in the past.

In an interview, Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan said his government will get rid of the existing requirements that could be matched only by the Lockheed Martin F-35 in order to benefit from a greater range of options to meet Canada’s defence needs.

“The requirements have to be changed, because right now, the requirements are pointing toward only one aircraft,” Mr. Sajjan told The Globe and Mail.

“Any requirements that we do set on, we have to make sure they allow for us to have different choices.” (end of excerpt)

Click here for the full story, on the Globe & Mail website.

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