Yesterday’s Canadian elections called on August, the 3rd, brought back the Liberal Party of Canada with a majority after ten years of Stephen Harper Conservative Party rule marked by the selection of the F-35 and the acquisition of the Boeing C-17 and CH-47F and Lockheed Martin C-130J.
Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II
Even if the aerospace industry has not been a big topics of the election trail, the fate of the F-35 in Canada suddenly became one briefly because of Justin Trudeau, chief of the Liberal Party of Canada. Unanticipadly in Halifax, Nova Scotia, on September, the 20th, the 50th day of the campaign, Justin Trudeau declared ‘We will not buy the F-35’. By the same token, he announced ‘An Open and Transparent Competition’.
He justified his position by saying that the main role of the planes that will replace the CF-18 will be the defense of the North American air space. He finally added by replying to a journalist that buying an combat aircraft other than the F-35 ‘will make save billions of dollars’.
He even dared to add the Lockheed Martin F-35 Ligthning II will be excluded from the call for tender he will call if he is elected. New Democratic Party (NDP) chief Thomas Mulcair called too for a competition for the replacement of the Royal Canadian Air Force McDonnell Douglas CF-18 Hornet fighters but letting the F-35 enter the contest.
Dominic Leblanc.
On Election eve, Dominic Leblanc, incubent and then re-elected Liberal Member of Parliament of Beauséjour, New Brunswick riding reiterated on TV Trudeau stand on his opposition to the F-35
Likewise in 1993, Liberal Party chief Jean Chrétien promised during the electoral campaign to scrap the contract for AgustaWestland EH-101 signed by the Conservative government of Brian Mulroney.
Once elected, Chrétien cancelled the order, paid CAN$500 millions in damage to the AngloItalian helicopter manufacturer to order a few years later the Cormoran, a derivative of the EH-101.
Canadian Participation in the Joint Strike Fighter started in 1997 while Canadian industrial involvment plan was confirmed in 2006. The F-35 was formally selected by Canada in 2010.
McDonnell Douglas CF-18 Hornet.
The Royal Canadian Air Force still flies 64 of the 138 CF-18 ordered in 1980 and delivered between 1982 and 1988.
According to Canadian government report the cost of 65 F-35 will be CAN$44 billions over 42 years.
Diplômé universitaire en histoire, journalisme et relations publiques, en 1993, Philippe Cauchi amorce une carrière de journalisme, analyste et consultant en aérospatiale. En 2013, il fonde avec Daniel Bordeleau, le site d’information aérospatial Info Aéro Québec.
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