For any government, retreat is embarrassing. For Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative government, it is near-unthinkable.

So the fact that Ottawa is publicly backtracking on plans to buy 65 state-of-the-art F-35 fighter planes is a sign of how truly bad the original decision must have been.

Harper left it to junior defence minister Julian Fantino to mumble his way through the about-face Tuesday.

It’s never been entirely clear what prompted Canada to choose Lockheed Martin’s unproved and uncosted F-35 as a replacement for its aging fleet of CF-18s.

That the F-35 is the only so-called stealth aircraft on the market presumably wowed Jean Chrétien’s Liberal government, which in 2002 first involved Canada in the deal. Stealth aircraft have an advantage in shooting wars since they are better at avoiding detection.

Ottawa was probably also convinced by U.S. claims that if enough countries signed onto the F-35 package, economies of scale would push down the cost per aircraft.

This was supposed to ensure that all participating nations would obtain this jewel at bargain-basement prices.

Were there other factors at play? Military analysts Michael Byers and Stewart Webb argue in a recent issue of the Canadian Foreign Policy Journal that Harper’s Conservatives were less interested in Arctic defence (for which the F-35 isn’t particularly well-suited) and wanted instead a fighter that could aggressively take part in overseas conflicts — such as last year’s NATO war on Libya.

That may explain why the Conservatives continued with the F-35 program when they took office. It doesn’t explain why their Liberal predecessors initiated it.

In any case, and for whatever reason, the Harper government didn’t bother soliciting bids from other manufacturers. Instead it threw in its lot with Lockheed Martin and the F-35.

Those who questioned the decision were slagged mercilessly. When the Liberals abruptly reversed course in 2010 and began to query the cost of the F-35, Conservatives accused them of being “hypocritical,” “misguided” and “spreading misinformation.”

“I don’t understand why the opposition is playing political games with this,” Harper said. “I don’t want to see politics played on the back of the military,” echoed Defence Minister Peter MacKay.

Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page warned that the fighters would cost far more than the government claimed. The Conservative response was that Page didn’t know what he was talking about.

But of course he did. Almost from the outset, the F-35 was hit by cost problems. In part, that was because it was so new. As Lockheed Martin produced fighters, the U.S. government kept sending them back to be fixed.

Ottawa insisted that the cost per plane for Canada was just $75 million. But both the U.S government accountability office and Page’s parliamentary budget office predicted that the real figure was close to double that.

As other countries committed to the F-35 got nervous, Ottawa held firm. In February, Italy cut back its order from 131 to 90. Japan warned the U.S. that if costs continued to rise, it would cancel its order for 42.

Australia is already reviewing its plans to buy 100 F-35s. Britain cut its original 140-plane order in half and has postponed until 2015 any decision on the remaining 70. The Netherlands is going back and forth.

Even the U.S. says it is “delaying” orders for 179 F-35s, a decision Washington acknowledged last week will push up the cost per plane again.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

Now the Harper government admits it may have been wrong. This is a remarkable event.

It’s also about time.

Thomas Walkom's column appears Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday.

Read more about: