Full Comment - Liberals are playing silly games with the military again

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00:01:27.040 Is Canada ever going to buy a new fighter jet? Hello, I'm Brian Lilly, and this is the Full

00:01:36.260 Comment Podcast. And if you've been paying attention to politics at all over the last

00:01:39.780 little while, then you know that there is a fierce debate over whether we buy the F-35.

00:01:44.500 F-35. This is the plane that we joined onto, I guess, as the Joint Strike Fighter Task Force back in the

00:01:51.700 1990s under a guy named Jean Chrétien. Yep. All of our younger listeners are now googling who was

00:01:57.600 Jean Chrétien and when was he prime minister. That's how long we've been part of the project.

00:02:01.900 The Harper government said they would buy the planes. Then they paused, held a review,

00:02:06.580 then agreed to buy the planes. Then the election in 2015 happened. Justin Trudeau said,

00:02:11.120 absolutely not. We will never buy the F-35s. He dithered for eight years, held an open competition.

00:02:18.820 The F-35 won, and in 2023, we agreed to buy 88 fighter jets. Well, that is now up for review.

00:02:25.860 And as all of this is happening, we've got an attempt to say, let's buy the Gripen from Sweden

00:02:31.620 and build it in Canada and get 10,000 jobs, even though the math doesn't add up. But Melanie Jolie,

00:02:37.540 our industry minister says she's not getting enough. Canada is not getting enough out of this deal.

00:02:44.380 Well, what I've said is I don't believe that we've had enough jobs created and industrial benefits

00:02:51.960 done out of the F-35 contract. I think it's not enough. I think Canadians expect more and we should

00:02:58.960 get more. So that's my first point. And second, when it comes to the Gripen, of course, we're really

00:03:04.380 interested in seeing what can be done because there was an unsolicited bid that came up.

00:03:11.520 10,000 jobs is indeed a very interesting offer. So we have to look at what our military capabilities

00:03:19.140 needs and at the same time, what are the number of jobs created across the country? I know that

00:03:24.780 Canadians want us to build, build more in Canada, build with Canadian jobs. And that's what I'm

00:03:30.240 pushing for. Okay. So what is the story behind all of this? Where do we go from here? Is there an

00:03:36.640 easy solution? Joining me to talk about this is David Berkison. He is a historian and academic at

00:03:42.320 the University of Calgary. Alan Williams is the former assistant deputy minister in procurement for

00:03:48.100 the Canadian Armed Forces. Gentlemen, thanks for the time. Can you help me make sense of any of this?

00:03:54.500 Does any of this make sense? I'll ask each of you to make your case for or against the F-35 or a

00:04:02.800 fighter jet. Do we need one? What are, you know, we seem to be Hamlet in this matter. David, I'll start

00:04:10.600 with you. Well, yeah, we need a fighter jet. First of all, we have obligations to NATO. And second of all,

00:04:18.560 we have obligations to NORAD. And the plane we're flying now on the CF-188 or CF-18, however you refer

00:04:26.440 to it, is going obsolete very, very quickly. I can't remember how many we have left, but not too many.

00:04:34.000 And they're going to strike it off strength sometime in the next five years. So we need something. So

00:04:40.760 the question is, what do we get? Well, we had a competition. We had, first of all, we had the

00:04:46.840 conservatives selecting it kind of out of the glitter blue sky way back when Stephen Harper was

00:04:52.760 prime minister. Then we had a long competition after Mr. Trudeau was elected and the F-35 came

00:05:00.520 out on top. I must tell you that the Americans are purchasing somewhere in the neighborhood of

00:05:06.320 1,500 to 2,000 of these for the Navy, the Marines, and the Air Force. The Brits are purchasing it. I can't

00:05:15.020 even remember how many NATO members are purchasing it because it is the best fighter available. It just

00:05:21.660 is. And the SOM came out in second best in the competition. So rather than just go ahead and sign a

00:05:32.780 deal for the whole shebang and have them delivered to us, we now have a politically sponsored interference 1.00

00:05:41.020 into the procurement process as we did way back with Jean Chrétien and the maritime helicopters.

00:05:50.860 And instead of getting the best airplane that is available, we have this fooling around with

00:05:58.620 Saab and with Sweden and the Swedish king and Queen and Saab is promising to build the F-30,

00:06:05.420 the Saab in Canada. Maybe they'll build it in front of parliament buildings. I don't know what they're

00:06:11.100 going to do. And it's like, I'd buy a house and you come along after I bought the house and say,

00:06:16.460 I want to buy your garage. That's what's going on here. Straightforward. Let this thing go.

00:06:24.140 They bought the P-8 from the Americans. There's got to be a lot of American components in our destroyers 0.92

00:06:29.980 and our Corvettes if we bought them. Not so sure about their submarines, but we are tied to the

00:06:37.180 United States because of geography, have been for hundreds of years, will be for hundreds of years.

00:06:43.180 Let's just stop this nonsense and buy this airplane as we said we would.

00:06:48.060 Alan, over to you. The CF-18 clearly needs to be replaced. You know, it entered service in January

00:06:54.860 1983. This is a very old plane. Past the duchy, if you remember that song. That was the number one

00:07:02.940 hit song on the Billboard Hot 100 in Canada back then. And Sting was still with the police cranking out

00:07:09.900 hits. So this is a really old plane. This is a really long time ago. What do we do here? What's your

00:07:17.580 argument for or against the F-35? Well, I don't have an argument for or against it, frankly. My focus

00:07:24.940 has always been and continues to be ensuring the integrity of the procurement process. And it just

00:07:32.140 shows you what happens when you screw it up. So the process isn't complicated. Military decides what it

00:07:38.940 needs. The government then, the ADM Materiel and PSPC together combined, produce an RFP.

00:07:49.260 You're speaking to civilians. Public Service Procurement Canada and the ADM MAT organization

00:07:55.420 go out, produce a request for proposal, evaluate the bids and select the winning bidder. And according

00:08:03.180 to our legislation, which is unique in the world, there is to be no political interference, which I

00:08:09.100 think is exceptionally right. When you bastardize the process, you get the kind of screw-ups we've had

00:08:15.820 for the last two decades. So first of all, the Conservative government announced in 2010 it was going to

00:08:22.620 buy these. It did it with any competition and without knowing what it was going to cost or what it

00:08:30.060 could do back then. But wasn't the competition the decision to join the Joint Strike Fighter?

00:08:37.500 No. I, in fact, joined it in 2001. And I joined it. And not because we had made a commitment to buy it,

00:08:46.140 but because if you didn't join it, your industry would not have an opportunity to participate in

00:08:51.500 this trillion-dollar program. So I put in a hundred million dollars of our money. And by the time I left a

00:08:57.820 few years later, the Canadian industry had already garnered through competition. That's how this

00:09:05.980 works. You're not given anything on this program. Over 400 million. And it continues to excel because

00:09:12.060 we've got exceptional and qualified industries. And so when I heard about this, I was with it.

00:09:19.660 Because there was no justification to so-sorting. A lot went on. Finally, the Conservatives came,

00:09:26.140 and you're quite right, but then the Liberals said they weren't going to buy it. When you run an open,

00:09:31.340 fair and transparent competition, and you don't interfere, you get the result. And the result was,

00:09:37.660 there were two compliant bids. And the F-35 was considered the better of the two through the evaluation.

00:09:45.740 And so we'd made our decision. That was good. It was much more complicated than it needed to be

00:09:51.820 because we screwed up the process. But at the end of the day, we got it right according to the process.

00:09:57.500 So what's happened now? And we went ahead. We were going to buy 88. We signed a contract for 16.

00:10:02.940 And that's what was progressing. What happened was, was Trump. And Trump made it clear that

00:10:11.100 relationships are not quite the same. And what was not commonly known at the time, and is now known,

00:10:16.620 and this is the new, if you want, variable or factor, is that the US controls the software.

00:10:24.700 Now, normally that wouldn't be a big deal. There are close allies. We've worked together. No one would

00:10:29.340 be concerned about it. But they control the information in what we call the mission data file.

00:10:36.060 And that's the file that identifies, locates, and tracks threats along the electronic spectrum.

00:10:44.780 And you need to update it to know where hostile radars are in order to become, in order to be

00:10:49.740 effective. And if for some reason the government or the US government was not going to update it,

00:10:55.580 very quickly our jets would become ineffective. So this was the big issue that came up at the

00:11:01.020 beginning of this calendar year. And Carney, I said, sort of reacted to that and said, okay,

00:11:09.820 I want to look at this and assess my options. So that's where we stand right now.

00:11:16.700 If I were the bureaucrat at doing it, I would present him with information on the cost implications

00:11:23.260 of having two fleets. I would talk to him, I would give him information on the industrial benefit

00:11:30.780 options between one program and the other. And I would talk to him about the operational implications.

00:11:37.420 Who would that have that factual independence? Now, I would say I wouldn't trust the Air Force to do it

00:11:43.100 because the Air Force, nope, I know what they want. And it might be the best plane, but you need,

00:11:49.340 just the same way the ADM Act does at the procurement, because it's objective and unbiased,

00:11:55.100 be it for the Army, Navy, Air Force, this too would be done independently. Armed with that information,

00:12:00.860 there's one more point, Brian, armed with that information, I would turn that over to the Prime

00:12:05.820 Minister. And then, of course, there's one other big factor, and that's the pulse. And that's what

00:12:10.460 they're paid to do. So as far as I'm concerned, this is fairly straightforward.

00:12:14.940 That Alan, if I can interrupt, I understand the concern around the kill switch and updating the

00:12:22.780 software. But most of these that we're going to get are, they're going to be delivered after

00:12:30.620 Donald Trump is out of office. And so I worry that people are overreacting. And I also don't think

00:12:40.140 Donald Trump would shut that down with a NORAD ally that he's trying to convince to join the

00:12:46.540 Golden Dome. But even if he did, he'll be out of office when most of these planes are delivered.

00:12:52.540 So is that a valid fear for us to say, we need to rethink this purchase?

00:13:00.860 Well, I think he reacted the way he did. My advice would be, don't do anything for or against the

00:13:08.140 the guy. Do what's best for the military. And if you came to the decision, having factored in

00:13:13.980 everything, that this is the best thing for the military, that's what you do. I don't think you

00:13:18.860 can, we're a sovereign country, and I don't think you can react. He's very unpredictable in any case.

00:13:25.180 And so you do what's best for the military. You can stand up and defend that to Canadians.

00:13:29.340 You can defend that in Parliament. You can defend that to the military. That's the high ground.

00:13:34.380 So I agree with you. The fact that we're going to get these much later, it factors into it too.

00:13:40.220 So I would just say, don't try and screw this up anymore. It's been long enough. If you feel that

00:13:46.700 that is the best plane, looking at jobs, looking at cost and looking at technical, go with it. I know

00:13:53.980 Jolly said what she said, but in fact, that was part of the evaluation. So at some point in time,

00:13:59.580 when they selected the F-35, they knew how many jobs the Grip and Saab had committed to. They knew

00:14:07.900 that. That was part of it. They knew the cost. And if, when they rolled it up in the evaluation

00:14:12.700 structure that they did, this was the best, that's the best. I don't think you come in later in the

00:14:18.060 game and start to play these things. That's how these things get screwed up. When you get ministers

00:14:22.220 involved, sort of lobbying for the stuff, you manipulate the process. And the strength of

00:14:28.300 the Canadian process is that it's, it's, uh, it's devoid of any ministerial information.

00:14:35.420 The way it's supposed to work is from the time you give authority to buy something

00:14:40.140 until you've picked the winners, ministers are not involved. You come to them and said,

00:14:44.460 this is the winner. This is why they won and go ahead.

00:14:48.540 David, I saw you nodding your head as we were talking about the fact that these will be delivered

00:14:54.140 after Trump is out of office. Um, you know, I think that, I think that overall Canadians have,

00:15:03.420 um, I, I understand emotional reactions to 51st state, whether it's reality or not. I understand

00:15:10.060 people want to defend the country, but I think we're, we are making decisions that should be

00:15:16.620 fact-based in a very emotional setting. And I would include the F 35 in that right now.

00:15:22.780 There are so many Canadians that, and I hear from them because I write and my belief is we should go

00:15:28.220 with the F 35. It has proven itself time and again to be the best jet that we can buy unless we want to

00:15:33.100 get into buying Russian or Chinese jets, uh, that some people say are better. It's the F 35. And,

00:15:39.660 and I hear very emotional arguments about screw Trump to hell with him. We can't trust him and say, 0.98

00:15:47.980 okay, but what's the best plane? Um, are we being too emotional on this?

00:15:52.700 Well, yeah, we are. And, uh,

00:15:55.260 Too emotional or too political perhaps?

00:15:57.500 Well, too political has resulted in too emotional or let's put it this way. I think our political

00:16:02.860 leadership today has, uh, has levered, uh, fears that shouldn't be there and has added fears to

00:16:10.940 that that shouldn't be there. All right. Let me give you a perfect example. We had a sole source

00:16:15.900 purchase. Uh, I can't remember how many months ago, Alan will know this of the P8, which is a

00:16:21.980 submarine hunting aircraft. The British are flying it. The Australians are flying it. The Americans are

00:16:27.420 flying it, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. It's a wholly designed, built in the United States.

00:16:32.780 Uh, why isn't somebody talking about, why aren't we canceling the P8 and buying something from

00:16:37.580 Bombardier, even though we have put billions of dollars into Bombardier's efforts to build

00:16:42.700 a passenger aircraft and lost most of our money? Why aren't we doing that? Well, well, okay. So that's

00:16:48.460 okay. So that American one is okay. Uh, F 35 going to play a huge role in NORAD and our NORAD 1.00

00:16:56.220 responsibilities, which NORAD responsibilities is have to, is defending the United States. Why

00:17:03.660 would the United States want to rend the F 35, uh, incapable of operation when the sole purpose of

00:17:11.500 us buying that aircraft is to help protect the United States? Why would they do that? It doesn't

00:17:16.060 make any sense whatsoever. We have a guy who's president. Don't get me going on him. I'm sure

00:17:21.580 Alan agrees with everything I would say about him, but he's got three something years to go. And, uh,

00:17:29.500 after that, these planes will fly for another 30 years.

00:17:34.300 Yeah. So why, why are we trying to, uh, decide on which plane to buy over a guy that will be out

00:17:40.700 of office in three years? Uh, uh, you know, for planes that'll fly for 30 to 40 more years.

00:17:46.540 Because we had an election to win because Mr. Carney had an election to win. And it was a,

00:17:52.220 and it was an issue as far as he was concerned, because it was going to gain him, gain him votes

00:17:57.580 for Canadians. Canadians have got to cool down about all of this. Yes, we have a lot of problems

00:18:03.820 in the United States that we have to solve. And, uh, with most of them with Mr. Trump,

00:18:09.100 but we have been part of the American market since the 1840s growing ever since. And we will continue

00:18:16.940 to because we are connected to them and there's no way we can saw off our half of the continent

00:18:22.380 and float it up north or west or east. So, I mean, I, the, the example I give is, you know,

00:18:29.500 a different example, but we've got a train running through Calgary here. It used to be called the

00:18:33.580 Canadian Pacific. Now it's called Canadian Pacific, Kansas City. What do they know

00:18:38.220 about this? They bought off the Kansas City because they know that North American rail

00:18:43.500 traffic going down into Mexico is the future of rail traffic in Canada. And that, by the way,

00:18:49.180 means we'd have to go across the United States. It doesn't seem to bother them. So why is this

00:18:55.100 bothering the politicians? So I, I repeat what I said earlier. We did this silly thing back when it

00:19:01.580 came to the maritime helicopters with Jean Chrétien. I'm not going to buy, I'm not going to buy a Cadillac.

00:19:07.500 And it was years and years and years and years and years before we finally did buy a maritime

00:19:12.460 helicopter. And what we did was we converted a civilian helicopter into a military helicopter.

00:19:18.300 And it's got all kinds of problems today, which the press is not really talking about because other

00:19:24.460 things are more important, but it has. And if we had just bought, let's say an American helicopter or

00:19:31.100 something like that, we wouldn't have those issues today. So there's just political interference on

00:19:36.220 the part of a political party that can't seem to keep their cotton picket fingers off the procurement

00:19:41.580 process.

00:19:41.660 I think it's very important. Ministers, part of the reason why the system is broken from my

00:19:49.420 perspective is the lack of trust and maybe knowledge between the bureaucrats and the ministers.

00:19:55.420 When I was there, ministers knew unequivocally they were not allowed to interfere, to say a word,

00:20:02.620 to get involved.

00:20:04.220 Just if I can pause, Alan, for people that don't know your background, give us the years that you

00:20:08.140 were there heading up the procurement for the military.

00:20:11.180 I was there from 2000 to 2005. But equally important, I was at what's now called Public

00:20:18.940 Service Procurement Canada from 1995 to 2000, where, in fact, you're accountable for the integrity

00:20:25.740 of the process and all the legislation that surrounds procurement, which is not usually known within

00:20:32.620 the national defense. And so we passed legislation, first the agreement on internal trade, then it was

00:20:39.340 converted to Canadian free trade agreement. And that precludes ministers getting involved. And I would

00:20:45.500 tell them, if you get involved, you're subject to legal risks. In the US, you can do all the lobbying

00:20:51.820 you want, but not in Canada with legal implications. And so they understood that. So I would simply say,

00:20:58.460 even over the last decade, ministers getting involved, like they are with the submarines,

00:21:03.740 and they are now, is a prescription for disaster. And I don't know why they aren't clearly counseled

00:21:12.540 by the deputy ministers and by the ADM accountable. You can't do this, minister. Stay out of it. You

00:21:20.140 can't win. Because once you interfere, it can come back to bite you. The loser can take it to CIT,

00:21:27.340 Canadian National Trade Tribunal or to federal court. It's a lose-lose situation. Trust us

00:21:33.340 to meet the military's needs at the best price for Canadians. That keeps you solid. And when we don't

00:21:39.580 do that, it's frustrating to me because we're just going to get convoluted and we're going to increase

00:21:45.500 the time and complications and frustrations of both the military and Canadians. And, you know,

00:21:52.140 people like David and myself, we just tear our hair at whatever we have left, you know,

00:21:57.260 with this kind of chaos that's going on now in the system.

00:22:01.180 Let me ask you about that. You mentioned price. And, you know, part of the argument that I hear

00:22:06.780 from Canadians is, well, the Gripen is a lot cheaper. And look, it may be cheaper. Some of the

00:22:13.980 the claims of how cheap it is, especially the operational costs, I think are suspect because

00:22:19.500 I know how much gas it takes. I know how much that gas or the fuel costs. And, you know,

00:22:26.380 it seems like you're running it for a buck 50 after you account for the fuel costs. I think that's

00:22:32.540 being odd. But what should we be looking for? Should Canada just pick the cheapest jet?

00:22:38.460 Is it the best value for money? How do you, in a procurement process, determine that? Because,

00:22:45.740 you know, if we just pick the cheapest, we'd be going with something much different than the F-35

00:22:50.700 or the Gripen, but it probably wouldn't provide what is needed for the military. So what's the

00:22:58.940 balancing act there? Well, there are a number of different ways of doing this. The evaluation criteria

00:23:04.540 can be structured in a number of different ways. I won't get into that. It's fairly complicated.

00:23:10.460 However, this one particularly was designed as follows. The bids would be coming in. 60% of the

00:23:19.100 marks would be given to the technical capability of the proposal. 20% of the marks went to the cost,

00:23:26.860 and 20% went to the industrial and technical benefits. And so all the things that are now being

00:23:32.460 talked about were in fact evaluated. Now, you can argue whether it was done right or wrong. I don't

00:23:37.740 know. But I'm assuming the bureaucrats did it objectively and honestly and came out with the

00:23:45.580 decision that when you factor in the price and when you factor in the industrial benefits and you factor

00:23:51.100 in the technical compromise and you add it all up, this one came out the best. And so the cost was

00:23:57.180 already looked at. Now, I do know, and I have said this publicly, the long-term support costs are 70%

00:24:05.980 cost of the program, 30% is acquisition. And for sure, the cost to maintain the Gripen is a lot less

00:24:15.740 than the F-35 because the F-35 is very expensive, $35,000 to $40,000 an hour. And you can argue whether

00:24:21.660 the Gripen is six times less or four times less, but it's much less, as are most others. There's 22

00:24:28.060 million lines of code in the F-35. It takes a lot of time. However, this was already considered.

00:24:33.740 That's what's frustrating to me.

00:24:35.180 Well, I see claims that it's $7,000 an hour to operate the Gripen. And you look and you say,

00:24:41.900 well, the fuel alone is about 6,800. So I don't know how you arrive at that. But everyone has become

00:24:49.020 a military procurement expert in this. David, if I can ask you, do we have it right in terms of

00:24:57.420 military procurement in buying the best at the best price, or are we trying to nickel and dime

00:25:03.740 ourselves at times? We are going to put air crew inside these airplanes. We're going to train them

00:25:11.100 to the utmost. I've been up to Cold Lake. I've seen some of the training processes that have gone in to

00:25:17.100 creating these pilots. And it costs a lot of money to do that, number one. And number two,

00:25:23.420 life cannot be replaced. We want to give our people the best there is to give them.

00:25:29.420 We have wasted so much time and so much energy that the costs keep going up. I think there is

00:25:38.300 no question whatsoever but that this is a much, much, much better airplane.

00:25:43.580 So why don't we go shopping for Spitfires, for God's sake? We can probably find a few of them 0.99

00:25:49.740 hanging around. We could probably build them with plywood. Well, we've got a hurricane here

00:25:54.780 at our hangar museum. And, you know, we've got a bunch of CF-100s that they're putting together

00:26:00.060 also at another museum here in town. That's not the point. The point, you want to give your people the

00:26:06.380 best so they can do the best. And the job they're doing is to safeguard North America. I don't know

00:26:11.740 what's more important than that here. In NATO, all kinds of other jobs that we did. Canadians aren't 1.00

00:26:19.180 even aware, most of them, of the fact that we had a nuclear role when we were flying the CF-104.

00:26:24.940 So this is kind of a thing where you come in in the middle of a sale and the guy that lost the sale,

00:26:31.340 you know, the real estate agent that couldn't sell you the house is going to try to sell you

00:26:36.220 the garage in the driveway because he couldn't sell you the house. That's not the way you do

00:26:41.500 business. And one of the things that worries me a lot is that we will be doing business

00:26:46.140 with American defense companies for decades and decades and decades to come. We cannot be

00:26:54.700 self-sufficient in the creation of a fighter aircraft. I don't care how many assembly lines

00:27:01.260 Saab sets up in Canada. We proved that way back with the F-105. And I know that there's just,

00:27:07.900 there's no argument for having had to continue with that. We cannot do it. We're not rich enough.

00:27:14.220 We don't have personnel enough and so on. So next time we want to do a deal with, I don't know,

00:27:20.140 some other American big corporation. And they say, well, look what you did to Lockheed Martin.

00:27:27.580 How can we trust you? Look what you did to Lockheed Martin. And that's going to put a

00:27:34.140 baseball bat on our shoulder, on our heads, not on our shoulders for a long time to come. I think

00:27:40.060 this is just the stupidest thing I've ever seen this government do. All right, we need to take a 1.00

00:27:45.740 quick break. When we come back, I do want to talk about the proposal by Saab and their claim of 10,000

00:27:53.100 jobs and what the government is actually up to in considering this. Back in moments.

00:27:58.860 This is Tristan Hopper, the host of Canada Did What?, where we unpack the biggest,

00:28:03.580 weirdest and wildest political moments in Canadian history you thought you knew and tell you what

00:28:08.780 really happened. Stick around at the end of the episode to hear a sample of one of our favorite

00:28:13.740 episodes. If you don't want to stick around, make sure you subscribe to Canada Did What?,

00:28:19.100 everywhere you get podcasts. The big number from Saab is definitely appealing. A promise of 10,000

00:28:25.420 jobs if we start assembling. That's an important word here. Assembling, not manufacturing, the Saab

00:28:32.460 Gripen Jet out of Sweden. Would we be putting them together like IKEA furniture with an Allen key? It

00:28:39.020 seems like that. They would be coming in in parts and we would piece them together. But how do

00:28:43.660 we end up at 10,000 jobs? Brazil is already in the middle of building their fleet of Gripen Jets.

00:28:50.140 They've promised to buy about 40, I believe. And well, the direct jobs from that through their

00:28:55.660 partnership with Embraer, a competitor to Bombardier, but a similar company, is 60 direct jobs

00:29:03.020 and 200 indirect at the company. So how do we get to 10,000? Are they counting the accountant that works

00:29:11.020 for the Tim Hortons that's down the street that's selling the guys the coffee at lunch?

00:29:15.180 Seems that's about the only way we can come up to that. David, do you want to take that? The 10,000

00:29:20.620 job claim? Look, it's a nice big number. It sounds good. Clearly, it's appealing to a government that

00:29:27.340 says they want to do more to build in Canada. But is it realistic?

00:29:31.500 Well, I'll begin with the fact that the major parts of the F-35 are built in Canada and have

00:29:39.180 been built in Canada for, I don't know, a decade. Alan will know that better than I have.

00:29:44.140 Because the whole idea of the consortium was that different countries, and not countries that

00:29:49.580 necessarily promised to buy the F-35, but different countries that signed onto the consortium

00:29:55.260 way back when the consortium agreement was signed, said, okay, well, we'll build the landing here,

00:30:01.340 we'll build the airframe, we'll build this, we'll build that, we'll build the other thing.

00:30:06.300 So we are building that thing in Canada. Now, I don't know how many jobs that has created in Canada

00:30:12.460 up to now, and maybe Alan will... It's about 2,500 to 3,000 at the moment.

00:30:17.980 Okay, 2,500... In that range.

00:30:19.500 Well, that ain't nothing. That ain't nothing. These are high-skilled, high-paying, high-intensity jobs.

00:30:26.460 And we will continue, because the F-35 isn't done, and it will be followed by another fighter

00:30:33.340 aircraft from the United States, you can bet. And this arrangement would potentially continue.

00:30:40.620 So the fact that they're saying, we're going to create 10,000 jobs in Canada, well,

00:30:46.780 if we've already got, what did you say, 2,500, 3,000 jobs that are going to the F-35. So that 10,000

00:30:55.260 doesn't look so great. That's number one. What's the cost of establishing that assembly line in

00:31:00.620 Canada? Where are they going to establish it? And then what happens when the assembly line runs out?

00:31:06.140 And what happens when the Saab is declared to be obsolete before the F-35 is? I mean,

00:31:11.660 this just doesn't make any sense. Alan, does the 10,000 job number make sense to you?

00:31:20.220 Well, I come to the same conclusion as David, but I come at it from a totally different perspective.

00:31:26.860 If, in fact, there are 10,000 jobs that they're committed to, then that should have been part of

00:31:33.180 their proposal that got evaluated. And as such, it would have to have been evaluated and assessed

00:31:41.340 by the Industry Canada officials in terms of their viability. Now, I don't know. First of all,

00:31:48.460 if they put it in, it was assessed and is either accepted or not. But at the end of the day,

00:31:55.740 they were deemed to be second best. So whether or not it's there or not, my answer is the procurement

00:32:03.980 process looked at that as part of the overall package by which you're going to assess and determine

00:32:11.820 the best. And it was determined that either they weren't valid or they were valid, but it wasn't

00:32:18.300 sufficient to, it wasn't a sufficient number of jobs in order to sway the result in their favor.

00:32:27.660 And so that's where I come at it. It was already looked at, and if they didn't put it in then,

00:32:33.100 that's too bad for them. That was their kick at the can. In our system, if you want it to be a true,

00:32:40.380 open, fair, and transparent, you get one kick at the can. Give it your best shot as a competition.

00:32:45.500 We don't go back and try to do what we're doing right now. We clearly do. We clearly do because

00:32:52.700 we're in the middle of doing it. Well, it's only because ministers have not,

00:32:56.780 and that's what I said before, ministers typically don't understand the procurement process and the

00:33:02.860 risk that they're taking. And so I would, again, I'm a bureaucrat. That's what I did. And I would argue

00:33:10.540 and debate and make sure the minister and the chief of staff and the PCO and everybody understood the

00:33:17.980 role they have to play. And they did. During my tenure there, I had no time that they ever stick

00:33:23.820 their feet in it or get involved because they knew it was going to harm them politically as well as the

00:33:31.740 business of procurement. So that's where I, it's very inappropriate. And I have no understanding

00:33:37.740 how they don't grasp the kinds of chaos they are creating in the system right now.

00:33:43.820 Well, you know, as David said earlier, how, how can the next company that we want to do business with

00:33:49.020 absolutely trust us? Absolutely. Trust is so key. And that's why if, you know, if you leave,

00:33:55.660 if you leave the politicians out of it, whether you win or you lose, you know, it's because of what

00:34:01.820 your bid. And if you don't like it, you can go to the Canadian trade commission, trade tribunal

00:34:07.820 or the courts. And if you're right, okay, they adjust, but you know, basically it was done by the

00:34:14.460 bureaucracy based on your own bid submission, not because some politician did a nod, nod, wink,

00:34:21.980 wink, you know, changes because of whatever reason. And that's the strength of our process

00:34:27.100 or has been. Alan, since you were so intimately involved, let me ask you about the whole industrial

00:34:33.020 benefits portion of how we procure military equipment. It's always bothered me at times.

00:34:40.620 It seems pork barreling. Um, I actually liked the way that the F 35 went. Um, the liberals have often

00:34:48.300 complained that, well, we don't have enough guaranteed jobs. And I've listened to them

00:34:52.780 say this for years, this doesn't guarantee enough specific jobs for these specific planes.

00:34:58.220 And the old way of doing things was while you're buying 88 or a hundred jets, then you get so much

00:35:04.380 money from that program that gets invested back in Canada. And while the way they did with this one,

00:35:10.940 as David alluded to earlier, you're part of the consortium from the beginning, your companies get to bid.

00:35:16.140 And so we are having Magellan build tailwind assemblies in Manitoba. Uh, we've got flaps being built in

00:35:26.220 Lunenburg, Nova Scotia. We've got parts for the, um, oh, what is it? The, the simulator. I almost forgot

00:35:33.580 the word, the simulator for training built in Kitchener. You've got parts, uh, coming out of

00:35:38.220 Richmond, British Columbia. And it, it's not just parts for the 88 jets that we've committed to buy.

00:35:44.860 It's every single F 35 that's built. So there's about 1200 that have already been made,

00:35:51.100 told there's a 2000 order backlog. The Saudis just ordered 48 of them. We get to put the parts in,

00:35:58.300 and all of those, I think that's a good thing, but what is this, you know, industrial benefits plan

00:36:05.820 that seems to be about making sure there's jobs for the boys in certain politically sensitive regions?

00:36:13.020 Well, let me, you're conflicting two separate things. Your first question was about the policy,

00:36:19.420 and I'm not happy with the policy, but let me tell you why. Uh, up until recently, we had what we

00:36:25.740 called an industrial and regional benefits policy. And what that meant is the following. When we ran a

00:36:31.980 competition for any major good or service, we would evaluate the bids solely on their cost and their

00:36:40.140 technical capability. And we picked the best one separate from that was the industrial plan that

00:36:47.420 they had to submit. And that was evaluated simply on a pass fail basis. And frankly, in that process,

00:36:55.500 in that plan, industry had to meet industries, Canada's specifications in terms of direct and

00:37:02.700 indirect jobs and economic benefit. That's the way it was. That's the way that it's played around the

00:37:08.460 world. And I was okay with it because it didn't, it didn't, uh, impact on which company won. They

00:37:16.380 changed that to what they call the industrial and technical benefits. And that means now that you

00:37:24.300 evaluate the actual bid based on technical, based on cost, but also based on jobs, and that can go up

00:37:33.580 to 20%. So as I like to say now, because someone is promising 17 more jobs, six years from now,

00:37:43.260 that may result in us getting a suboptimal solution for the military. And I've been dramatically,

00:37:50.700 I think that's insane. I think it's, there's no justification for it. Now that's Canada. Now

00:37:56.220 the F-35 program, as we've talked about is based on some totally other way of doing business. You're

00:38:02.620 not, and typically the, the companies that win would have to guarantee jobs slash economics equal to the

00:38:10.460 value of the contract. That's how it's done. That's why I say it sounds like pork barreling.

00:38:16.780 Well, except that that's how it's done in the world. And we're not going to be, we're not going

00:38:21.180 to be sort of the Pollyanna here. Having said that the F-35 program is not structured that way at

00:38:27.340 all. And that's what I said. We got into it. So our industry can bid and win. And the numbers I saw

00:38:32.780 at the end, we're going to get $15 billion worth of economic benefits from this program. And it's

00:38:39.500 structured in such a way that you have to be the best to win the contract on behalf of all the players

00:38:45.820 in the system. And I think that's great. So there's two separate, you asked about the policy.

00:38:50.140 The policy in general has nothing to do with the F-35 and I've explained it. In terms of the F-35,

00:38:56.380 if you're successful, whether you order planes or not, you get to win based on your merits and

00:39:03.420 congrats to Canadian industry that have been so successful.

00:39:06.540 Yeah. We are building the landing gears.

00:39:09.180 Yeah. We're building a lot of components. And I have to tell you, when I was there,

00:39:14.860 we were by far as, you know, the group of bureaucrats that I had working on this were just

00:39:20.380 phenomenal. They were proactive. They were aggressive. They knew more about the kinds of

00:39:25.580 opportunities coming up than any other country did. And they would work with our industry to position

00:39:32.380 themselves to win. And they won. You can be very proud of the capabilities of our country. And in

00:39:38.860 fact, we had to help other countries understand how the process worked. These guys were so good.

00:39:43.660 Anyways, all to say is we've done great with great people and great capability within our country.

00:39:51.500 And I think we should be really thrilled with how well we have done in the, you know, with the F-35

00:39:57.100 program. Let me ask about general military procurement and, you know, whichever one of

00:40:02.140 you wants to take this first. We have had issues over the years and whether it's politicians or

00:40:07.820 generals getting in the way, it just takes too long to equip our military. And it's very frustrating.

00:40:15.900 You know, buying the big birds during Afghanistan, the C-130s and such, that was a pretty straightforward

00:40:24.780 thing. The government just went to Boeing and said, hey, this is the plane we need. Can we get to the

00:40:29.020 front of the line? They said, yes. We only needed a couple of them. That seemed to work well. Should

00:40:34.860 we be buying off the shelf more often or not? Let me make a few points. The biggest impediment

00:40:44.860 to getting things done faster is we don't have one minister accountable. I've said this all along.

00:40:49.420 You got, up until this, this, this new defense investment agency, the process was two separate

00:40:56.460 departments overlapping and duplicating. That causes tremendous confusion. You have no performance

00:41:01.740 measures. When I was there, having said that, I cut the procurement down by 40%. When I left, after I

00:41:09.900 left, it was greater than when I started. You can do it, but you have to understand the process and not

00:41:17.180 try to manipulate it. Soul sourcing doesn't work. Brian, you mentioned the C-130s. We bought them,

00:41:23.740 but after we announced them, it took us 18 months to get to a contract because we're busy messing

00:41:29.420 around with the terms and conditions. It took us over three years to buy the Chinooks that we soul

00:41:34.860 sourced. Soul sourcing does not improve the time. What you need is open, fair competition. Do it right.

00:41:41.980 Have one minister accountable and you'll streamline the process dramatically. Combine that with

00:41:48.380 performance measures and it'll work. The real problem, I will say this with the defense investment

00:41:53.740 agency, which I was thrilled about at the beginning, but now I find out that it's only going to look

00:42:00.940 after procurements over a hundred million dollars, which makes absolutely no sense. There's no difference,

00:42:06.380 a 95 million dollar procurement and 105. And instead of streamlining the process, removing overlap,

00:42:12.620 now you've added another organization on top of everything else. So they've snatched the feet from

00:42:19.020 the jaws of victory. As I like to say, the procurement process, if you follow it the way it's supposed to

00:42:24.220 be done, can be streamlined and the times. When I was there, actually, I was working with Major General

00:42:33.820 George McDonald, the Vice Chief. And we set a standard. We said, from now on, guys, military,

00:42:42.620 you have no more than two years to define what you need. This is not nuclear science. We're not

00:42:48.140 reinventing. And I have two years to get it into contract. We signed that off and that's what we did.

00:42:53.500 So from a nine year time frame, we got it down to four years. And once you sign the contract, of course,

00:42:59.340 then it's just a production time frame. So it can be done if you put on performance measures and especially

00:43:05.100 if you can hold one minister accountable. We're the only country in the Western world where the prime minister

00:43:10.380 cannot go to one minister and hold that minister accountable for delivering things. And that's insane.

00:43:16.780 This offense investment agency could have solved the problem, but unfortunately, it's made it worse.

00:43:21.100 David? Weapons are expensive. And the more these weapons become, the more modern they are, the more

00:43:32.860 investment to get them produced at the end of the day. If you're going to have a defense policy,

00:43:39.740 if you're going to defend the nation, you've got to spend the money. And we had our previous prime

00:43:46.620 minister going around the year before the election with goodies here and there, uh,

00:43:51.500 dental care. And, uh, I don't know what other kind of care he had. I was looking for, for dog care.

00:43:57.820 I have a dog and I really wanted my, my dog care to be covered by, and, and, and that all costs money.

00:44:05.100 So at the end of the day, you say, well, it's too expensive. We can't afford to buy it. No,

00:44:10.380 you can't afford to buy it. They, the, uh, there are ways in which the costs are spread out.

00:44:15.820 And Alan knows a hell of a lot more about this than I do, that you buy the damn airplane because 0.99

00:44:21.820 it's the best. That's all. I can't say any, any more than that. It's the best plane. 0.99

00:44:26.700 You want the best plane to defend your country. You want the best plane for your air force. You

00:44:30.940 want the best plane for NATO in these times, which are so dangerous. You don't want to be

00:44:36.300 see chuntering around and saying, let me go to the market and see if I can find something a lot cheaper.

00:44:41.500 That's just not what you do when it comes to the defense.

00:44:46.300 Can I make one comment?

00:44:47.500 Sure.

00:44:47.980 Just, um, when you and David talk about the best, I say it's the best because it turned out to be the

00:44:57.260 best through the procurement process. If we didn't have the procurement process, I would not necessarily

00:45:03.660 agree with you because best means a lot of different things to a lot of different people. But the fact that we

00:45:09.340 did an open fair and transparent that determined it was the best, I agree with you. It is, we have

00:45:16.940 defined it that they were all stacked up against each other. They were stacked up against each other

00:45:21.980 on exactly on the same terms and a decision was made. That's correct.

00:45:27.500 Should we be looking to build more in Canada? Um, you know, obviously the parts going to the F-35,

00:45:36.300 I think that's fantastic. And it speaks volumes about the, um, how good our aerospace industry

00:45:43.660 is that we are providing so many, you know, it's not just nuts and bolts. We are providing real

00:45:49.660 significant parts to the F-35. We're in the middle of trying to buy submarines. There's talk,

00:45:56.860 maybe we could build them here. Um, I think back to, uh, you know, when, when I trained on small arms,

00:46:03.980 it was with the FNC one, a one where it hits a really old rifle. Now it goes back to the 1950s,

00:46:09.100 but we used to build them in Canada. I think we still, um, you know, uh, manufactured the C seven

00:46:15.340 down around Kitchener. Um, but should we be doing more to build up, uh, our own industry? I know that

00:46:24.140 sounds like it goes against what I was saying earlier, but should we, should we ensure that

00:46:29.500 there's at least some level of production capability here? We've, we've got small arms that we can make

00:46:34.940 here. We've got, uh, ammunition that we can make here, both for small arms and for artillery. Do we

00:46:41.820 need to be making more? Well, it depends on what your, what your capacity is for the size of the,

00:46:47.180 uh, of the, of the kit that you're aspiring to build. You know, I have a, I have a model of

00:46:52.380 the CF-105 sitting on my desk here. I could show it to you. And in the book, the book, I'll push my

00:46:58.140 book that I published last year on the history of the, of the Royal Canadian Air Force, hundred years

00:47:02.780 in Royal Canadian Air Force. It showed what many people have said over the years and that, that, uh,

00:47:09.660 we had problems when we produced the CF-100 back in the early 1950s. Sidi Howe hated Avro because of

00:47:16.540 that. Uh, you don't have the industrial capacity. You have brains, but you don't have the industrial

00:47:23.740 capacity to be a mass producer of weapon systems. The Israelis found this out, what, about 30 years ago,

00:47:30.060 they were going to develop a, uh, a C, uh, an F-16 type aircraft called the Lavi and they called it off.

00:47:36.700 They couldn't do it. And so they have, they have taken the F-16s and they have modified them for

00:47:42.620 their own requirements. Yes, you can do that. But to start from scratch, we can't do it anymore.

00:47:48.860 We're a country of 40 million people. That's all we are. And our market is limited. So the amount of

00:47:55.660 savings that we can get from building for our own requirements are minimal. Can't be done.

00:48:01.420 Could, could we be exporting though, David? Well, export to who? Can't export to the Americans. 0.92

00:48:08.300 They're not going to export to the Brits, not going to export to the Australians. They're already going

00:48:12.380 to buy American stuff. Alan wants to say something and probably something that's, uh,

00:48:17.660 to the point that I'm saying. Well, I agree. Um, and that you talk about when I, one of the things that

00:48:26.300 I've complained about, again, that was in my book in 06, um, is that we're the only country, again,

00:48:32.860 that doesn't have a 21st century defense industrial strategy. All that we do in Canada

00:48:39.260 is build ships and buy ammo. Those are the two things. And they weren't as a result of a conscientious,

00:48:47.180 uh, think tank or strategic review policies that are 40, 50 years ago.

00:48:52.700 So I think, and I've said this a long time and I have no idea why ministers don't do this. I've asked

00:48:57.740 them, why don't you, you know, take a robustly go out through Canada and see what are the areas?

00:49:05.660 And this gets to David's point and to your point. What are the areas where we can be the best in the

00:49:10.380 world? We have either the people or the common, we know what the world needs, find out where we can be

00:49:15.900 the best and then leverage that understanding through our procurements, through tax incentives,

00:49:22.220 to encourage industries to build, to, to be expert best in that. So that not only for Canada,

00:49:28.780 but for the rest of the world, it's still small arms, but whatever it happens to be,

00:49:34.700 I don't know the answer. Well, but, but I can point to, to one example, PGW out of Winnipeg,

00:49:40.140 Prairie Gunworks is what it was originally called. They produce one of the finest 50 caliber sniper

00:49:46.380 rifles going. The, the, the Ukrainians wanted to buy it and we blocked them for years. I don't know 1.00

00:49:51.500 why. Um, fantastic, uh, manufacturing. We, we do have capabilities. I think sometimes we get in our own

00:49:58.860 way. Well, it's not, we don't even think strategically about these things. Why don't we decide? Why don't we

00:50:05.340 have a policy of framework? Australia has it. The U S has it. UK has that you go to there. You can see

00:50:12.140 what they're committed to as a country to building indigenously, to strengthen their own capability

00:50:18.540 within their country and to export around the world. Why don't we do that? I would think that

00:50:24.220 if you're a minister, especially the minister of industry, wouldn't that be something that you would

00:50:28.780 just jump at the opportunity to reshape Canada in the future and think strategically. I think that's

00:50:35.180 what's missing our inability to sort of move away from the transaction of today.

00:50:40.700 Sit, sit back and think strategically and develop a policy framework to guide us into the future.

00:50:47.660 Alan, David, it's been a great discussion. I hope people have enjoyed it. Um, definitely

00:50:52.380 illuminating for me. Thank you both very much.

00:50:54.860 You're very welcome.

00:50:55.980 Pleasure.

00:50:56.460 Wonderful day.

00:50:57.740 Full Comment is a post-media podcast. My name's Brian Lilly, your host. This episode was produced by Andre

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00:51:08.620 button. Remember to leave us a review, share us on social media, do what you can to spread the word.

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00:51:21.180 Here's that clip from Canada did what? I promised you. 0.67

00:51:24.380 So, um, although, although abortion was sort of accessible, it really wasn't.

00:51:35.500 But then 1988 rolls around. And what's the law on abortion then? Suddenly, there wasn't one. Literally

00:51:43.580 no restrictions existed in 1988. Abortion went from heavily restricted to completely unrestricted,

00:51:50.780 almost overnight. There was no referendum on this. There wasn't even an act of parliament.

00:51:56.460 This whole thing is due to a somewhat surprised decision out of the Supreme Court of Canada.

00:52:01.900 And it came about in large part because of one man, a Canadian doctor who had been relentless

00:52:07.100 about running illegal abortion clinics since the 1960s and was determined to overturn the laws

00:52:12.460 prohibiting the practice. Along the way, he endured multiple arrests, constant raids, a jail term,

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Full Comment - November 24, 2025

Liberals are playing silly games with the military again

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