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The 18 Super Hornets the Trudeau government has said it intends to buy are expected to cost between $5 and $7 billion. On Tuesday, the Canadian government sent a letter to its U.S. counterpart outlining what it’s looking for in a potential Super Hornet purchase, which the jets’ manufacturer, Boeing, will use to draft a formal proposal by this fall. If the price and timeline are right — and if the purchase would provide enough economic spinoff benefits for Canada — the Liberals hope to sign a contract by late this year or early next. The plan has drawn plenty of criticism.

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“Will Canada be surrendering sovereignty? The simple answer is yes,” said Lt.-Gen. George MacDonald, who flew CF-18 Hornets from Bagotville, Que., for NORAD for five years and was the binational military alliance’s deputy commander before 9/11 and then served as vice chief of the defence staff in Ottawa before retiring in 2004. (He now works for CFN Consultants, which has as a client Lockheed Martin, the manufacturer of the F-35.)

“The Russians would be delighted to see Canada flying Super Hornets in the north,” said Gen. Tom Lawson, the retired former chief of the defence staff and ex-deputy commander of NORAD, who sometimes works as a consultant for Lockheed. “The Super Hornets will be a big, bright object on the radars of Russian early-warning aircraft. With the F-35, the Russians will not see them until they are too close.”

Gen. Jean Boyle, a former chief of defence and fighter pilot who was Boeing’s vice-president of international business when the Super Hornet was coming online nearly 20 years ago, says he can see the argument against using Super Hornets in the Far North. “In times of increased tension there is no doubt that NORAD would put its best assets, the (U.S. Air Force’s) F-35 and F-22, forward instead of a Super Hornet, to ensure the defence is thorough.