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Abstract
The procurement of the F-35 has quickly become one of the most publicly debated acquisitions in Canadian history. While its proponents maintain that it is the only aircraft capable of meeting Canada's requirements, its detractors assert that its rising price tag and obvious scheduling delays due to its developmental nature will mean poor value to Canadian citizens in the end. The fact that the aircraft was selected without competition has compounded this fear. Indeed, they have seen similar situations happen before. As a result of the cancellation of the Navy's Sea King helicopter replacement project in 1993, the Liberal government could not justify purchasing the very same aircraft years later even though it was obvious that it was the best choice for Canada. The cancellation of the previous replacement effort had already cost the taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. As a result, they selected another aircraft that was still in development due to partisan politics and that decision has led to what has been the longest and most poorly-run procurement in Canadian history. There are many parallels between the Maritime Helicopter Project and the F-35 acquisition and they all lead to the conclusion that Canadian taxpayers will end up, once again, waiting longer and paying more than expected for a platform with a very uncertain future.
Notes
The margin of error for a random sample of the 1216 respondents was plus or minus 2.8 percentage points, 19 times out of 20 (Nanos Poll Citation2011).
New Democratic Party of Canada (Citation2011, p. 21).
For his official statement, see the Bloc website available at: http://www.blocquebecois.org/bloc.aspx?bloc=d17a4ddf-5b75-4ef4-9564-6f0a6b9531be.
In a poll conducted for CBC News following the May 2 Federal election, only 37 percent said the government should purchase the aircraft. Environics polled 2000 people by phone from May 12 to 22, with a margin of error of plus or minus 2.2 percentage points, 19 times out of 20. See Environics Citation(2011).
Williams signed the Memorandum as the Canadian Assistant Deputy Minister (Materiel).
Unless otherwise noted, this section on the Sea King replacement was retrieved from Plamondon Citation(2010).
According to the former Assistant Deputy Minister (Materiel) Ray Sturgeon (personal communication, 20 February 2006).
Retrieved from Westland's official website available at: http://www.whl.co.uk/pdfs/history_rotor_a_s.pdf [Accessed 2 June 2006].
Among the many books on the Arrow see (Stewart Citation1988).
Federal Court Between AgustaWestland International Limited and Minister of Public Works and Government Services and Sikorsky International Operations, Inc., Citation2004. Received by request from the Federal Court of Canada, Court File T-1605-04, Filed 1 September, p. 6, 3, 10–14, 18.
Japan may also decide against the F-35, as they want delivery of their first new aircraft by March 2017 and are concerned with the JSF schedule slips (The Japan Times Citation2011).
As the 2 May election approached, DND finally admitted that the aircraft may cost more than $75 million, but the government has made no such admission (Pugliese Citation2011).
The author is currently working for Raytheon Canada and, therefore, shall make no comment on the potential competition other than to say that other options do exist.