Assessing the costs and benefits of Canada’s 12-year F-35 odyssey

OTTAWA — Defence experts say there have been both costs and benefits to Canada’s long journey in choosing a new fighter jet, which resulted this week in the launch of negotiations for the purchase of F-35s.

David Perry of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute says the clearest benefit is that the F-35 is now flying actual missions for the U.S. and other allies, which wasn’t the case when Stephen Harper’s Conservative government selected it for a sole-source contract in 2010.

Queen’s University procurement expert Kim Nossal agrees, saying Canada managed to skate around many of the development issues that are still being ironed out on the F-35s, which only became fully operational for the U.S. in 2016.

Nossal is also hopeful that the past 12 years have had another benefit: reducing the level of political interference in military procurement, which he blames for the fact Canada will still be flying its aging CF-18s through 2032.