Baloney Meter: Are Australian fighter jets a ‘rusted-out bucket of bolts’?
OTTAWA — “The Liberals are buying rusted-out fighter jets from Australia even though the defence minister actually said that they would never buy used planes. We know that these 80s-era (planes) are rusted out because a 2012 Australian report said corrosion was so bad that the number of active flying days had to be cut. This is not a bucket of bolts, Mr. Speaker. This is a bucket of rusted-out bolts, Mr. Speaker. Why are they going back on their word?” — Conservative MP Tony Clement, Dec. 12.
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Another chapter was added this week to the interminable saga to replace Canada’s aging fleet of fighter jets when the Liberal government officially abandoned plans to buy 18 Super Hornets from U.S. aerospace giant Boeing, which is in the midst of a bitter trade dispute with Montreal-based Bombardier.
Canada will instead purchase 18 used F-18s — similar to the CF-18s the Royal Canadian Air Force is using now, and just as old — as an interim measure to deal with what the Liberals call a critical shortage of jets until they can replace the whole fleet.