Urgent’ Super Hornets just another pawn in Trudeau’s desire
PluggyRug @ Thu May 25, 2017 3:22 pm
Andrew Coyne: ‘Urgent’ Super Hornets just another pawn in Trudeau’s desire to prop up Bombardier
$1:
Andrew Coyne | May 24, 2017 9:00 PM ET
Back in November, when the Liberal government announced it would be making an “interim” purchase of 18 Super Hornet fighter jets from Boeing, it was all about the need for speed.
There wasn’t time to hold an “open competition” to select a permanent replacement for the air force’s aging fleet of CF-18s, as the Liberals had promised during the election. The reason: the government had discovered a critical “capability gap” in our air defences that had to be filled at once.
Well, here we are in May, and the Super Hornets that were supposedly so urgently necessary to the defence of our national borders turn out to be just another in the apparently endless list of pawns to be sacrificed in pursuit of the Trudeau government’s real and only strategic objective, propping up Montreal-based Bombardier Inc.
Billions of dollars in direct and indirect aid to Bombardier, from both the federal and Quebec governments, having met with the entirely predictable response from its competitors — not only a suit before the World Trade Organization on behalf of Brazil’s Embraer, but latterly a complaint to the U.S. Commerce department by Boeing, demanding retaliatory duties of nearly 160 per cent — the government has now taken the unprecedented step of tying an important procurement decision to the outcome of a private trade dispute.
“Canada is reviewing current military procurement that relates to Boeing,” Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland declared last week, adding: “Our government will defend the interests of Bombardier, the Canadian aerospace industry and our aerospace workers.” As if the implied threats were not quite heavy-handed enough, Canada’s ambassador to Washington, David MacNaughton, volunteered his opinion that Boeing, by availing itself of the remedies for alleged unfair trade practices prescribed under the laws of the United States, was guilty of “lousy customer relations.” Nice little fighter-jet deal you got there. Pity if anything should happen to it.
The particulars of the dispute, we should be clear, are not the issue. Whatever the technical definition of an illegal export subsidy, there is no doubt that Bombardier is the beneficiary of government subsidy — many of them, in fact. Neither is there much disagreement that last year’s sale of 75 CSeries passenger jets to Delta — at a substantial loss — would not have been possible, for a company that was deep in debt and rapidly running out of cash, without the timely arrival of $1.3 billion in aid from the government of Quebec. Bombardier does not even bother to deny much of this. It says only that the scale of the support, and the discount on the planes, was not unusual or out of bounds, in an industry in which all of the players, including Boeing, are heavily subsidized.
Which is true. It doesn’t make any side’s subsidy any smarter — indeed, that all sides are subsidizing each other’s jets to a draw only makes the stupidity of the whole exercise more obvious. Neither is the folly of one government’s subsidy made less by another’s tariff. Rather than punish Delta for exploiting Bombardier’s weakness, the U.S. government would be better advised to take the Quebec taxpayers’ money and run.
So everyone’s in the wrong. That’s not the point. The point, rather, is that the government of Canada seems willing to escalate a dispute between two private companies into an all-out trade war — one that, as by far the smaller partner, we are in no position to win. If there is any country that has an interest in a rules-based approach to resolving trade disputes, it is us. If the U.S. is abusing its own trade laws, there are other and better remedies available to us than cancelling procurement deals, whether through NAFTA or the WTO. If it is not — if it is we who are in the wrong, legally speaking — all the more reason not to do so.
It’s not clear what the government’s end game is. Suppose our bluff is called — Boeing refuses to withdraw its complaint, the relevant U.S. authorities find in its favour, the tariffs are applied. Is it really ready to nix the Super Hornets deal in response?
Perhaps it is. The “interim” purchase has been almost universally criticized by military experts as an expensive distraction: what is needed, nearly everyone agrees, is to get started on acquiring a permanent replacement fleet. The “capability gap” was a transparent invention: the underlying rationale, that we had to be ready to meet all of our NATO and NORAD obligations simultaneously, had never previously been part of defence doctrine.
Absolutely nothing stands in the way, in other words, of the government going ahead with the promised competition — nothing, except the Liberals’ other, and contradictory, promise that the Lockheed F-35 favoured by the previous Conservative government would not be part of it. But a truly open competition would expose the government to the embarrassing risk that the F-35, against which the Liberals had inveighed to much political effect, might win. So: put off the competition until after the next election, using the interim purchase as a pretext. If it costs $12 billion, all in, for planes that would likely be junked in 10 years, well, what price power?
But now the Liberals have dragged one costly policy misstep into the midst of another, trapping themselves in yet another fork of their own making. Either the Super Hornets are an urgently needed stopgap for a glaring deficiency in our military capacity, in which case the Liberals’ clumsy attempt at blackmail, if it does not collapse in humiliation, would trade away national security for the benefit of a failing, but well-connected, private company.
Or the planes, contrary to the government’s repeated assurances, were every bit as expendable as they now appear — in which case the Liberals merely broke a key election promise and lied about it. Either way, it seems so unlike them.
Back in November, when the Liberal government announced it would be making an “interim” purchase of 18 Super Hornet fighter jets from Boeing, it was all about the need for speed.
There wasn’t time to hold an “open competition” to select a permanent replacement for the air force’s aging fleet of CF-18s, as the Liberals had promised during the election. The reason: the government had discovered a critical “capability gap” in our air defences that had to be filled at once.
Well, here we are in May, and the Super Hornets that were supposedly so urgently necessary to the defence of our national borders turn out to be just another in the apparently endless list of pawns to be sacrificed in pursuit of the Trudeau government’s real and only strategic objective, propping up Montreal-based Bombardier Inc.
Billions of dollars in direct and indirect aid to Bombardier, from both the federal and Quebec governments, having met with the entirely predictable response from its competitors — not only a suit before the World Trade Organization on behalf of Brazil’s Embraer, but latterly a complaint to the U.S. Commerce department by Boeing, demanding retaliatory duties of nearly 160 per cent — the government has now taken the unprecedented step of tying an important procurement decision to the outcome of a private trade dispute.
“Canada is reviewing current military procurement that relates to Boeing,” Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland declared last week, adding: “Our government will defend the interests of Bombardier, the Canadian aerospace industry and our aerospace workers.” As if the implied threats were not quite heavy-handed enough, Canada’s ambassador to Washington, David MacNaughton, volunteered his opinion that Boeing, by availing itself of the remedies for alleged unfair trade practices prescribed under the laws of the United States, was guilty of “lousy customer relations.” Nice little fighter-jet deal you got there. Pity if anything should happen to it.
The particulars of the dispute, we should be clear, are not the issue. Whatever the technical definition of an illegal export subsidy, there is no doubt that Bombardier is the beneficiary of government subsidy — many of them, in fact. Neither is there much disagreement that last year’s sale of 75 CSeries passenger jets to Delta — at a substantial loss — would not have been possible, for a company that was deep in debt and rapidly running out of cash, without the timely arrival of $1.3 billion in aid from the government of Quebec. Bombardier does not even bother to deny much of this. It says only that the scale of the support, and the discount on the planes, was not unusual or out of bounds, in an industry in which all of the players, including Boeing, are heavily subsidized.
Which is true. It doesn’t make any side’s subsidy any smarter — indeed, that all sides are subsidizing each other’s jets to a draw only makes the stupidity of the whole exercise more obvious. Neither is the folly of one government’s subsidy made less by another’s tariff. Rather than punish Delta for exploiting Bombardier’s weakness, the U.S. government would be better advised to take the Quebec taxpayers’ money and run.
So everyone’s in the wrong. That’s not the point. The point, rather, is that the government of Canada seems willing to escalate a dispute between two private companies into an all-out trade war — one that, as by far the smaller partner, we are in no position to win. If there is any country that has an interest in a rules-based approach to resolving trade disputes, it is us. If the U.S. is abusing its own trade laws, there are other and better remedies available to us than cancelling procurement deals, whether through NAFTA or the WTO. If it is not — if it is we who are in the wrong, legally speaking — all the more reason not to do so.
It’s not clear what the government’s end game is. Suppose our bluff is called — Boeing refuses to withdraw its complaint, the relevant U.S. authorities find in its favour, the tariffs are applied. Is it really ready to nix the Super Hornets deal in response?
Perhaps it is. The “interim” purchase has been almost universally criticized by military experts as an expensive distraction: what is needed, nearly everyone agrees, is to get started on acquiring a permanent replacement fleet. The “capability gap” was a transparent invention: the underlying rationale, that we had to be ready to meet all of our NATO and NORAD obligations simultaneously, had never previously been part of defence doctrine.
Absolutely nothing stands in the way, in other words, of the government going ahead with the promised competition — nothing, except the Liberals’ other, and contradictory, promise that the Lockheed F-35 favoured by the previous Conservative government would not be part of it. But a truly open competition would expose the government to the embarrassing risk that the F-35, against which the Liberals had inveighed to much political effect, might win. So: put off the competition until after the next election, using the interim purchase as a pretext. If it costs $12 billion, all in, for planes that would likely be junked in 10 years, well, what price power?
But now the Liberals have dragged one costly policy misstep into the midst of another, trapping themselves in yet another fork of their own making. Either the Super Hornets are an urgently needed stopgap for a glaring deficiency in our military capacity, in which case the Liberals’ clumsy attempt at blackmail, if it does not collapse in humiliation, would trade away national security for the benefit of a failing, but well-connected, private company.
Or the planes, contrary to the government’s repeated assurances, were every bit as expendable as they now appear — in which case the Liberals merely broke a key election promise and lied about it. Either way, it seems so unlike them.
Just Trudeau pandering to Quebec again.
BeaverFever @ Thu May 25, 2017 7:14 pm
PluggyRug PluggyRug:
Andrew Coyne: ‘Urgent’ Super Hornets just another pawn in Trudeau’s desire to prop up Bombardier
Just Trudeau pandering to Quebec again.
$1:
Andrew Coyne | May 24, 2017 9:00 PM ET
Back in November, when the Liberal government announced it would be making an “interim” purchase of 18 Super Hornet fighter jets from Boeing, it was all about the need for speed.
There wasn’t time to hold an “open competition” to select a permanent replacement for the air force’s aging fleet of CF-18s, as the Liberals had promised during the election. The reason: the government had discovered a critical “capability gap” in our air defences that had to be filled at once.
Well, here we are in May, and the Super Hornets that were supposedly so urgently necessary to the defence of our national borders turn out to be just another in the apparently endless list of pawns to be sacrificed in pursuit of the Trudeau government’s real and only strategic objective, propping up Montreal-based Bombardier Inc.
Billions of dollars in direct and indirect aid to Bombardier, from both the federal and Quebec governments, having met with the entirely predictable response from its competitors — not only a suit before the World Trade Organization on behalf of Brazil’s Embraer, but latterly a complaint to the U.S. Commerce department by Boeing, demanding retaliatory duties of nearly 160 per cent — the government has now taken the unprecedented step of tying an important procurement decision to the outcome of a private trade dispute.
“Canada is reviewing current military procurement that relates to Boeing,” Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland declared last week, adding: “Our government will defend the interests of Bombardier, the Canadian aerospace industry and our aerospace workers.” As if the implied threats were not quite heavy-handed enough, Canada’s ambassador to Washington, David MacNaughton, volunteered his opinion that Boeing, by availing itself of the remedies for alleged unfair trade practices prescribed under the laws of the United States, was guilty of “lousy customer relations.” Nice little fighter-jet deal you got there. Pity if anything should happen to it.
The particulars of the dispute, we should be clear, are not the issue. Whatever the technical definition of an illegal export subsidy, there is no doubt that Bombardier is the beneficiary of government subsidy — many of them, in fact. Neither is there much disagreement that last year’s sale of 75 CSeries passenger jets to Delta — at a substantial loss — would not have been possible, for a company that was deep in debt and rapidly running out of cash, without the timely arrival of $1.3 billion in aid from the government of Quebec. Bombardier does not even bother to deny much of this. It says only that the scale of the support, and the discount on the planes, was not unusual or out of bounds, in an industry in which all of the players, including Boeing, are heavily subsidized.
Which is true. It doesn’t make any side’s subsidy any smarter — indeed, that all sides are subsidizing each other’s jets to a draw only makes the stupidity of the whole exercise more obvious. Neither is the folly of one government’s subsidy made less by another’s tariff. Rather than punish Delta for exploiting Bombardier’s weakness, the U.S. government would be better advised to take the Quebec taxpayers’ money and run.
So everyone’s in the wrong. That’s not the point. The point, rather, is that the government of Canada seems willing to escalate a dispute between two private companies into an all-out trade war — one that, as by far the smaller partner, we are in no position to win. If there is any country that has an interest in a rules-based approach to resolving trade disputes, it is us. If the U.S. is abusing its own trade laws, there are other and better remedies available to us than cancelling procurement deals, whether through NAFTA or the WTO. If it is not — if it is we who are in the wrong, legally speaking — all the more reason not to do so.
It’s not clear what the government’s end game is. Suppose our bluff is called — Boeing refuses to withdraw its complaint, the relevant U.S. authorities find in its favour, the tariffs are applied. Is it really ready to nix the Super Hornets deal in response?
Perhaps it is. The “interim” purchase has been almost universally criticized by military experts as an expensive distraction: what is needed, nearly everyone agrees, is to get started on acquiring a permanent replacement fleet. The “capability gap” was a transparent invention: the underlying rationale, that we had to be ready to meet all of our NATO and NORAD obligations simultaneously, had never previously been part of defence doctrine.
Absolutely nothing stands in the way, in other words, of the government going ahead with the promised competition — nothing, except the Liberals’ other, and contradictory, promise that the Lockheed F-35 favoured by the previous Conservative government would not be part of it. But a truly open competition would expose the government to the embarrassing risk that the F-35, against which the Liberals had inveighed to much political effect, might win. So: put off the competition until after the next election, using the interim purchase as a pretext. If it costs $12 billion, all in, for planes that would likely be junked in 10 years, well, what price power?
But now the Liberals have dragged one costly policy misstep into the midst of another, trapping themselves in yet another fork of their own making. Either the Super Hornets are an urgently needed stopgap for a glaring deficiency in our military capacity, in which case the Liberals’ clumsy attempt at blackmail, if it does not collapse in humiliation, would trade away national security for the benefit of a failing, but well-connected, private company.
Or the planes, contrary to the government’s repeated assurances, were every bit as expendable as they now appear — in which case the Liberals merely broke a key election promise and lied about it. Either way, it seems so unlike them.
Back in November, when the Liberal government announced it would be making an “interim” purchase of 18 Super Hornet fighter jets from Boeing, it was all about the need for speed.
There wasn’t time to hold an “open competition” to select a permanent replacement for the air force’s aging fleet of CF-18s, as the Liberals had promised during the election. The reason: the government had discovered a critical “capability gap” in our air defences that had to be filled at once.
Well, here we are in May, and the Super Hornets that were supposedly so urgently necessary to the defence of our national borders turn out to be just another in the apparently endless list of pawns to be sacrificed in pursuit of the Trudeau government’s real and only strategic objective, propping up Montreal-based Bombardier Inc.
Billions of dollars in direct and indirect aid to Bombardier, from both the federal and Quebec governments, having met with the entirely predictable response from its competitors — not only a suit before the World Trade Organization on behalf of Brazil’s Embraer, but latterly a complaint to the U.S. Commerce department by Boeing, demanding retaliatory duties of nearly 160 per cent — the government has now taken the unprecedented step of tying an important procurement decision to the outcome of a private trade dispute.
“Canada is reviewing current military procurement that relates to Boeing,” Foreign Minister Chrystia Freeland declared last week, adding: “Our government will defend the interests of Bombardier, the Canadian aerospace industry and our aerospace workers.” As if the implied threats were not quite heavy-handed enough, Canada’s ambassador to Washington, David MacNaughton, volunteered his opinion that Boeing, by availing itself of the remedies for alleged unfair trade practices prescribed under the laws of the United States, was guilty of “lousy customer relations.” Nice little fighter-jet deal you got there. Pity if anything should happen to it.
The particulars of the dispute, we should be clear, are not the issue. Whatever the technical definition of an illegal export subsidy, there is no doubt that Bombardier is the beneficiary of government subsidy — many of them, in fact. Neither is there much disagreement that last year’s sale of 75 CSeries passenger jets to Delta — at a substantial loss — would not have been possible, for a company that was deep in debt and rapidly running out of cash, without the timely arrival of $1.3 billion in aid from the government of Quebec. Bombardier does not even bother to deny much of this. It says only that the scale of the support, and the discount on the planes, was not unusual or out of bounds, in an industry in which all of the players, including Boeing, are heavily subsidized.
Which is true. It doesn’t make any side’s subsidy any smarter — indeed, that all sides are subsidizing each other’s jets to a draw only makes the stupidity of the whole exercise more obvious. Neither is the folly of one government’s subsidy made less by another’s tariff. Rather than punish Delta for exploiting Bombardier’s weakness, the U.S. government would be better advised to take the Quebec taxpayers’ money and run.
So everyone’s in the wrong. That’s not the point. The point, rather, is that the government of Canada seems willing to escalate a dispute between two private companies into an all-out trade war — one that, as by far the smaller partner, we are in no position to win. If there is any country that has an interest in a rules-based approach to resolving trade disputes, it is us. If the U.S. is abusing its own trade laws, there are other and better remedies available to us than cancelling procurement deals, whether through NAFTA or the WTO. If it is not — if it is we who are in the wrong, legally speaking — all the more reason not to do so.
It’s not clear what the government’s end game is. Suppose our bluff is called — Boeing refuses to withdraw its complaint, the relevant U.S. authorities find in its favour, the tariffs are applied. Is it really ready to nix the Super Hornets deal in response?
Perhaps it is. The “interim” purchase has been almost universally criticized by military experts as an expensive distraction: what is needed, nearly everyone agrees, is to get started on acquiring a permanent replacement fleet. The “capability gap” was a transparent invention: the underlying rationale, that we had to be ready to meet all of our NATO and NORAD obligations simultaneously, had never previously been part of defence doctrine.
Absolutely nothing stands in the way, in other words, of the government going ahead with the promised competition — nothing, except the Liberals’ other, and contradictory, promise that the Lockheed F-35 favoured by the previous Conservative government would not be part of it. But a truly open competition would expose the government to the embarrassing risk that the F-35, against which the Liberals had inveighed to much political effect, might win. So: put off the competition until after the next election, using the interim purchase as a pretext. If it costs $12 billion, all in, for planes that would likely be junked in 10 years, well, what price power?
But now the Liberals have dragged one costly policy misstep into the midst of another, trapping themselves in yet another fork of their own making. Either the Super Hornets are an urgently needed stopgap for a glaring deficiency in our military capacity, in which case the Liberals’ clumsy attempt at blackmail, if it does not collapse in humiliation, would trade away national security for the benefit of a failing, but well-connected, private company.
Or the planes, contrary to the government’s repeated assurances, were every bit as expendable as they now appear — in which case the Liberals merely broke a key election promise and lied about it. Either way, it seems so unlike them.
Just Trudeau pandering to Quebec again.
You must have been quite the Trudeau fan to think he'd be any different from Harper and every other federal government in the past 150 years when it comes to "pandering to Quebec"
herbie @ Thu May 25, 2017 8:38 pm
And pretty out of tune if you think a foreign company should go after a Canadian one and expect the Canadian gov't to still do business with it and shut up too.
Dumb move Boeing.
Thanos @ Thu May 25, 2017 8:49 pm
So are we getting the fucking replacement jets or has that all been sabotaged and pissed away by the government playing who-is-the-biggest-fuckhead? the way they always do with anything desperately needed by the armed forces? 
ShepherdsDog @ Thu May 25, 2017 9:35 pm
In Brussels today, Tater Tot the Vapid was prevaricating about how his government only wants the best for those Canadians in uniform.
He's a selfie-serving lying sack of shit like Trump
Freakinoldguy @ Fri May 26, 2017 3:45 am
Thanos Thanos:
So are we getting the fucking replacement jets or has that all been sabotaged and pissed away by the government playing who-is-the-biggest-fuckhead? the way they always do with anything desperately needed by the armed forces?
Pandering to Quebec aside, given this Gov'ts antics I'd say we were never going to get new or even old planes in the first place and all the "new planes" rhetoric was just smoke an mirrors much like the "new warships" bullshit which as it turned out was nothing but more of our PM's falsehoods when dealing with the Military and Veterans.
I'm also wondering when this vaunted "white paper" on defense that was going to show the way forward in fixing the military is going to be released? Especially, since it was "PROMISED" over a month ago but, was withheld till Trudeau spoke to the POTUS. A fact which happened weeks ago meaning, they likely never had a "White Paper" and that story's just another fabrication to deflect ridicule the Minister of Defense for his blatant lies wile abroad or, they have one and are just to ashamed of it to allow the release for public consumption.
Either way the Canadian Military is once again gonna get screwed by the Gov't.
herbie @ Fri May 26, 2017 12:39 pm
I'd like to have my Lionel train set to play with too.
Look at the date on the bottom right of your computer, it says 2017. What are fighter planes and warships good for against cyber threats, transnational terrorists and ICBMs?
Tack in that if the entire Canadian Forces were in ONE RIDING they might be able to win it, if they all voted the same, which they don't.
PluggyRug @ Fri May 26, 2017 2:54 pm
$1:
Liberals fork over another $30 million to keep Canada at F-35 table
Lee Berthiaume · The Canadian Press
May 25, 2017
Lockheed Martin says it 'would openly welcome discussions about interim fighter solutions'
Canada has quietly paid another $30 million toward development of the F-35 — money that could become insurance in the trade dispute between U.S. aerospace firm Boeing and Canadian rival Bombardier.
The annual payment was made to the U.S. military at the end of April, the Department of National Defence says, and will keep Canada at the table as one of nine partners in the fighter jet project for the next year.
Canada has paid US$373 million into the program since 1997, National Defence spokeswoman Jessica Lamirande said in an email.
Staying in the program has advantages, as partners can compete for billions of dollars worth of contracts associated with the building and maintaining of the F-35. They also get a discount when purchasing the plane.
That latter point wasn't considered much of a benefit when Canada paid its annual instalment last year, as the Liberals had promised during the 2015 election not to buy the stealth fighter.
The government instead went out of its way last July to highlight the potential benefits to Canada's aerospace industry when explaining why it had decided to stick with the program.
Those industrial benefits continue to accrue, Lamirande said, with Canadian companies having secured US$926 million in F-35-related contracts over the last 20 years — including US$114 million in the last year alone.
But the trade dispute between Boeing, which builds Super Hornet fighter jets, the F-35's main competitor, and Montreal-based Bombardier casts the decision to stick with the stealth-fighter program in a new light.
Citing an urgent need for more fighter jets, the Liberal government announced last November its plan to buy 18 "interim" Super Hornets until a competition could be held to replace Canada's entire CF-18 fleet.
Bombardier and Boeing
But then last week, the government threatened to scrap the Super Hornet purchase after Boeing persuaded the U.S. Department of Commerce to launch an investigation against Bombardier.
Boeing alleges Bombardier sold its CSeries jets in the U.S. at an unfair discount thanks to subsidies from the Canadian government, while Bombardier says its planes never competed with Boeing.
Many defence analysts and former air force officers have questioned whether "interim" fighter jets are needed and instead want an immediate competition to replace all of the CF-18s.
But if more jets are truly needed on a short-term basis, the decision to stay at the F-35 table could be used to get a better deal on interim stealth fighters — or even as a bargaining chip against Boeing.
"If the government is in fact serious about re-evaluating its dealings with Boeing, then this could be part of showing that," said defence analyst David Perry of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute.
"Because the F-35, at least in my mind, would be a possible alternative if the government remains committed to buying separate interim aircraft."
A return to the F-35?
Three other alternatives exist — the Saab Gripen, Eurofighter Typhoon and Dassault Rafale — but all are made by European companies and the government has emphasized the need for a U.S. design.
Lockheed Martin, the company behind the F-35, has remained relatively quiet about the government's plan to buy interim Super Hornets, but is now chomping at the bit for a chance to fill any potential gap.
The U.S. company "would openly welcome discussions about interim fighter solutions," spokeswoman Cindy Tessier said, adding that Lockheed has partnered with Bombardier on another military project.
The government is providing little information as to what next steps it might take as the dispute between Boeing and Bombardier continues to play out.
Boeing, for its part, has emphasized its longstanding relationship with Canada, even as representatives from its defence division have scrambled to meet and smooth the edges with Canadian officials.
The U.S. International Trade Commission, which heard arguments from both aerospace companies in a hearing last week, isn't expected to issue a ruling until June 12.
The U.S. Department of Commerce would then decide whether to penalize Bombardier.
Lee Berthiaume · The Canadian Press
May 25, 2017
Lockheed Martin says it 'would openly welcome discussions about interim fighter solutions'
Canada has quietly paid another $30 million toward development of the F-35 — money that could become insurance in the trade dispute between U.S. aerospace firm Boeing and Canadian rival Bombardier.
The annual payment was made to the U.S. military at the end of April, the Department of National Defence says, and will keep Canada at the table as one of nine partners in the fighter jet project for the next year.
Canada has paid US$373 million into the program since 1997, National Defence spokeswoman Jessica Lamirande said in an email.
Staying in the program has advantages, as partners can compete for billions of dollars worth of contracts associated with the building and maintaining of the F-35. They also get a discount when purchasing the plane.
That latter point wasn't considered much of a benefit when Canada paid its annual instalment last year, as the Liberals had promised during the 2015 election not to buy the stealth fighter.
The government instead went out of its way last July to highlight the potential benefits to Canada's aerospace industry when explaining why it had decided to stick with the program.
Those industrial benefits continue to accrue, Lamirande said, with Canadian companies having secured US$926 million in F-35-related contracts over the last 20 years — including US$114 million in the last year alone.
But the trade dispute between Boeing, which builds Super Hornet fighter jets, the F-35's main competitor, and Montreal-based Bombardier casts the decision to stick with the stealth-fighter program in a new light.
Citing an urgent need for more fighter jets, the Liberal government announced last November its plan to buy 18 "interim" Super Hornets until a competition could be held to replace Canada's entire CF-18 fleet.
Bombardier and Boeing
But then last week, the government threatened to scrap the Super Hornet purchase after Boeing persuaded the U.S. Department of Commerce to launch an investigation against Bombardier.
Boeing alleges Bombardier sold its CSeries jets in the U.S. at an unfair discount thanks to subsidies from the Canadian government, while Bombardier says its planes never competed with Boeing.
Many defence analysts and former air force officers have questioned whether "interim" fighter jets are needed and instead want an immediate competition to replace all of the CF-18s.
But if more jets are truly needed on a short-term basis, the decision to stay at the F-35 table could be used to get a better deal on interim stealth fighters — or even as a bargaining chip against Boeing.
"If the government is in fact serious about re-evaluating its dealings with Boeing, then this could be part of showing that," said defence analyst David Perry of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute.
"Because the F-35, at least in my mind, would be a possible alternative if the government remains committed to buying separate interim aircraft."
A return to the F-35?
Three other alternatives exist — the Saab Gripen, Eurofighter Typhoon and Dassault Rafale — but all are made by European companies and the government has emphasized the need for a U.S. design.
Lockheed Martin, the company behind the F-35, has remained relatively quiet about the government's plan to buy interim Super Hornets, but is now chomping at the bit for a chance to fill any potential gap.
The U.S. company "would openly welcome discussions about interim fighter solutions," spokeswoman Cindy Tessier said, adding that Lockheed has partnered with Bombardier on another military project.
The government is providing little information as to what next steps it might take as the dispute between Boeing and Bombardier continues to play out.
Boeing, for its part, has emphasized its longstanding relationship with Canada, even as representatives from its defence division have scrambled to meet and smooth the edges with Canadian officials.
The U.S. International Trade Commission, which heard arguments from both aerospace companies in a hearing last week, isn't expected to issue a ruling until June 12.
The U.S. Department of Commerce would then decide whether to penalize Bombardier.
Freakinoldguy @ Fri May 26, 2017 10:23 pm
herbie herbie:
I'd like to have my Lionel train set to play with too.
Look at the date on the bottom right of your computer, it says 2017. What are fighter planes and warships good for against cyber threats, transnational terrorists and ICBMs?
Tack in that if the entire Canadian Forces were in ONE RIDING they might be able to win it, if they all voted the same, which they don't.
Look at the date on the bottom right of your computer, it says 2017. What are fighter planes and warships good for against cyber threats, transnational terrorists and ICBMs?
Tack in that if the entire Canadian Forces were in ONE RIDING they might be able to win it, if they all voted the same, which they don't.
I guess you haven't told America, North Korea, Russia, India, Iran, China and half the middle east that they don't need their conventional military forces anymore because their computers say 2017.
I'm sorry, but the fact of the matter is that unless you're willing to unleash nuclear hell on anyone who pisses you off there'll always be a need for conventional forces and just because JT doesn't think it's worth spending money on silly things like self defense, every country in the previous paragraph disagrees. But hey, what do they know?
Besides, Trudeau needs those same under equipped conventional forces he's now under funding to put into harms way so, he can get that seat on the UN Security Council he covets. And remember, when a computer or ICBM just won't do, you still need boots on the ground to further all of your vain glorious ambitions.
herbie @ Sat May 27, 2017 9:34 am
Look at your list. A 'conventional' military force here is only useful against one of them, and futile at that. And they're not going to threaten us even though their military's purpose IS projection of force.
None of the others can threaten us with armour or surface ships.
Fighters are another thing, their role is t attack bombers, which have been obsolete since about 1960. They evolved into fighter-bombers for quick attack against specific target, mainly armoured columns and other fighter bombers. And even that's evolved. They're of extremely limited use.
The Canadian public is not going to support a return to Afghanistan or more bombing of terrorist camps, so whoever the PM is will muddle along like the last two.
Yeah, everyone agrees they need new stuff. But when Canadian here have to fight budget cuts that close Coast Guard bases and dive teams they're not going to give fighters and destroyers priority.
Political reality.
CDN_PATRIOT @ Sat May 27, 2017 9:45 am
herbie herbie:
I'd like to have my Lionel train set to play with too.
Look at the date on the bottom right of your computer, it says 2017. What are fighter planes and warships good for against cyber threats, transnational terrorists and ICBMs?
Look at the date on the bottom right of your computer, it says 2017. What are fighter planes and warships good for against cyber threats, transnational terrorists and ICBMs?
So when someone attacks us, or ISIS starts blowing things up here at home, we should send them an email with an angry emoticon to mull over? Get a grip. You clearly haven't paid attention to much of anything happening in the world. But....it's a left-wing thing. Talk first, research later. Because who needs facts, right? We'll all just talk out of our rear ends continually, and see who can make the biggest fart.
I'm not dismissing cyber defence or anything of the sort. Yes, we should devote SOME resources towards that area. But only an idiot would get rid of a physical military, which is needed regardless.
-J.
Freakinoldguy @ Sat May 27, 2017 10:50 am
herbie herbie:
Look at your list. A 'conventional' military force here is only useful against one of them, and futile at that. And they're not going to threaten us even though their military's purpose IS projection of force.
None of the others can threaten us with armour or surface ships.
Fighters are another thing, their role is t attack bombers, which have been obsolete since about 1960. They evolved into fighter-bombers for quick attack against specific target, mainly armoured columns and other fighter bombers. And even that's evolved. They're of extremely limited use.
The Canadian public is not going to support a return to Afghanistan or more bombing of terrorist camps, so whoever the PM is will muddle along like the last two.
Yeah, everyone agrees they need new stuff. But when Canadian here have to fight budget cuts that close Coast Guard bases and dive teams they're not going to give fighters and destroyers priority.
Political reality.
None of the others can threaten us with armour or surface ships.
Fighters are another thing, their role is t attack bombers, which have been obsolete since about 1960. They evolved into fighter-bombers for quick attack against specific target, mainly armoured columns and other fighter bombers. And even that's evolved. They're of extremely limited use.
The Canadian public is not going to support a return to Afghanistan or more bombing of terrorist camps, so whoever the PM is will muddle along like the last two.
Yeah, everyone agrees they need new stuff. But when Canadian here have to fight budget cuts that close Coast Guard bases and dive teams they're not going to give fighters and destroyers priority.
Political reality.
Like you say, you don't need to have a huge military to be a threat. You can be some goat humping middle eastern country who has just acquired a nuclear capability from some place like North Korea. Then, you can use it at will if no other nuclear power is willing to use theirs because of the chance of retaliation from you allies.
So, how do you propose we stop countries like that from using their weapons with impunity if we can't retaliate with a nuclear weapon and can't invade to destroy their capability to create even more WMD's because we have no conventional military capability?
Look at it this way. People say that Nuclear Weapons have prevented WWIII because the
outcome of a conflict using them would be to horrendous to contemplate. Just look at it from a reciprocal bearing. By using conventional military forces to stop people seeking or using nuclear weapons we have prevented that nuclear conflagration. It goes both ways.
So, despite your assertion that they're obsolete, there will always be a need for conventional military forces and the fact that Canada doesn't have adequate ones is not because of a political reality but, because of a lack of political will.
herbie @ Sat May 27, 2017 11:04 am
Get a grip?
Who the fuck is going to attack us militarily? Nobody.
What good are tanks, bombers and destroyers against a lone wolf terrorist? SFA.
You pay attention. There's no immediate threat of 10,000 tanks pouring through the Fulda Gap anymore, that's why the NATO countries on the front line are shaking their heads at the Orange Idiot and his demands to increase budgets.
No matter how much you want to rant about it, nobody's losing sleep over it. And it won't garner enough votes on that single issue to make a difference.
PluggyRug @ Sat May 27, 2017 11:35 am
herbie herbie:
Get a grip?
Who the fuck is going to attack us militarily? Nobody.
Who the fuck is going to attack us militarily? Nobody.
..and you know that how?
herbie @ Sat May 27, 2017 3:35 pm
Look at a damn map. St. Pierre & Miquelon? Greenland?
Or should we spend 10X our total budget in case Trump wants to invade?