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“We are looking at all options on the table at this point,” she said Thursday, in response to repeated questions by the NDP. “[The process] is a full evaluation of all choices, not simply a refresh.”

When asked Friday whether she would make public the statement of requirements which detail what the military needs from its aircraft, she said these “will be set aside while that full option analysis is done”.

Sources suggest the new secretariat set up within Public Works to look at the F-35 purchase is not comfortable with the previous statement of requirement produced by National Defence, so it is carrying out its own due diligence on what the Royal Canadian Air Force is likely to need in the coming years.

The previous statement of requirement demanded the new aircraft have stealth capabilities to make it difficult for an enemy to detect it by radar. Since the F-35 is the only jet with stealth capability currently being produced by Western manufacturers, critics have accused the process of being rigged in Lockheed Martin’s favour.

Some industry experts have suggested that technological advances may make stealth obsolete within a relatively short space of time. If the government has accepted that thinking, it may decide to open up any competition to aircraft without stealth capability.

By opening up the process, the Conservatives will be able to deflect criticism that has dogged them since they announced their intention two years ago to buy 65 of the fighter jets from Lockheed Martin, in a deal the Department of National Defence would cost $16-billion to purchase and maintain the planes.