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Photo by Lockheed Martin photo

Unless, of course, the auditor Michael Ferguson finds that the entire tangled web was woven in the minister’s office, with the connivance of the military, in order to deceive the public and avoid political embarrassment.

To recap, in spring 2016, Postmedia reported the Liberals planned on buying Boeing Super Hornet fighters to bridge a so-called “capability gap”. The benefits to the governing party were obvious – it postponed the need for a competition to replace the aging CF-18s that risked being won by the F35. In its election platform, the Liberals had promised to hold an “open and transparent” competition to replace the CF-18s but had also pledged not to buy the F35 – commitments that would seem, to anyone whose head did not zip up at the back, incompatible.

Prior to the leak, Sajjan mentioned the capability gap at every opportunity, despite the commander of the air force, Lt.-Gen. Michael Hood, telling the House of Commons defence committee the CF-18s useful life could last until 2025 and that any decision taken before 2021 would give the air force sufficient time to adjust. Alan Williams, a former assistant deputy minister of materiel at National Defence, said a competition could produce results within a year.

Subsequently, the minister was silent on the file until November when he appeared at a press conference alongside Vance, then public works minister Judy Foote, and Innovation Minister Navdeep Bains to deliver the news that the government would indeed sole-source an “interim” purchase of 18 Boeing Super Hornets – at a cost of an estimated $6.4 billion. The editorial comment in this space at the time described the event as “the uncomfortable attempting to justify the indefensible”.