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Panel will endorse Ottawa’s decision on F-35

The government, which backed off $45-billion plans to buy the
controversial F-35 Lightning in 2012, had ordered a reassessment of what
Canada needs in a fighter and what’s available on the world market.

It’s now setting the stage for a tough decision on the file, starting
with a public thumbs-up from the four independent experts who oversaw
the Royal Canadian Air Force’s re-evaluation of fighter options.

The
Conservative government is hoping this will lend credibility when it
announces the next step. The Tories’ carefully cultivated image as
stewards of the public purse took a beating in 2012 after a damning
Auditor-General’s report said they selected the F-35 without due regard
for price and availability.

The main decision facing the
government is whether to stick with the untendered purchase of F-35s or
launch a full competitive bidding process for new aircraft.

But
sources said Ottawa has also been considering a third route forward, one
that could buy it more time and possibly delay a decision until after a
2015 election.

The government has also been looking at the possibility of rewriting
the requirements for the fighter jet, something it hasn’t touched to
date. This is because, as insiders say, the current technical
specifications are designed to pick the F-35. No other jet could meet
all the existing requirements.

“If the government doesn’t want to
make a decision before the election, it can state that it needs to
review the statement of requirements based on the work that has been
done,” a source involved in the process said. “It would be a way for the
government to show action without having to make a commitment.”

Ottawa
will hold a technical briefing for media, planned for this Thursday and
a source said that during this presentation, the four-member panel is
expected to “discuss its work and endorse the methodology that was
used.”

The independent review panel was made up of former fighter
pilot and ex-Communications Security Establishment Canada chief Keith
Coulter, University of Ottawa professor Philippe Lagassé as well as two
retired senior civil servants, James Mitchell and Rod Monette, a former
federal comptroller-general. It has held 32 meetings between late 2012
until February of this year, according to the minutes publicly posted on
a Public Works website.

The monitors supervised the government’s
evaluation of technical and financial data that were supplied by four
aircraft manufacturers involved in the “evaluation of options” to
replace the current fleet of CF-18s. Sources said the process was based
on a “risk analysis” that ranks the jets based on a number of criteria,
including the ability to meet planned missions for the new aircraft and
their maintenance and upgrading costs.

The F-35 continues to draw
criticism, with experts insisting that a single-engine fighter jet is
not particularly well suited to replace Canada’s twin-engine CF-18 for
remote missions such as Arctic patrols.

“You could use a
single-engine aircraft to do national and continental missions, but
there would be greater risk involved. It is as simple as that,” Duff
Sullivan, a retired major-general and former fighter pilot, said in an
interview. “When you lose an engine in a CF-18, it’s a non-event. … When
you lose the engine of a single-engine aircraft, the outcome is
certain: You will be ejecting from that aircraft.”

Mr. Sullivan,
who is not working for any firms involved in the current process,
oversaw allied air operations in Afghanistan and worked as a defence
adviser in the Privy Council Office before retiring in 2010. He said the
F-35’s biggest advantage comes at the high end of the spectrum of
military operations, such as a hypothetical mission to conduct a
pre-emptive strike in North Korea. But Mr. Sullivan said Canada has not
traditionally participated in these “most extreme, most unlikely” types
of missions.

The F-35 is still in development, and has faced a
number of technological challenges that have boosted its price tag.
Still, as the most modern fighter on the market, it promises to offer
unrivalled stealth capabilities and state-of-the-art capabilities when
it enter into operation.

The SuperHornet, by contrast, is already
in use and offers more predictable sustainment costs, government
officials and experts said.

The opposition parties in the House
are also urging the federal government to conduct a competition,
pointing out that the sole-sourced process was ripped apart in 2012 by
the auditor-general. The project is estimated to cost at least
$45-billion over the new aircraft’s lifespan.