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It’s easy to see the appeal for the Liberals in procuring Super Hornets. They can honour their promise in spirit, if not in letter — they would procure jets that aren’t F-35s, while keeping the door open, at least in theory, for F-35s later. That would allow Canada to remain a part of the program while purchasing “interim” Super Hornets. This would help meeting growing operational gaps caused by the fact Canada’s fighter fleet is far too small to reliably meet our domestic patrol obligations and international commitments. It might also make it easier for the government to officially decide, at some later date, against the F-35. Since we already have all these Super Hornets, after all …

But this poses obvious problems. If Canada is to buy new jets, we need to buy enough of them, and quickly enough, to make a real difference. We will have to invest heavily in infrastructure and training and simulators. Super Hornets evolved from the same F-18 jet that Canada first bought in the 1980s, but they are, in many ways, very different aircraft and would involve significant expense. Even as an interim solution, the air force would need enough of them to be able to actually deploy in strength.

How many would that mean? Australia, for instance, spent $2.5 billion on two dozen Super Hornets, as an interim measure until its F-35s could arrive. Canada is a larger country, with more sky to patrol, plus, thanks to membership in NORAD and NATO, greater international obligations. It would be difficult to buy enough jets to fill even an “interim” role without having to buy so many it would be transparently obvious that the “interim” claim was a fiction. The CF-18 fleet is down to only 80 jets. If Ottawa bought 40 Super Hornets as an “interim” measure, would anyone believe the next 40 (or so) would be anything else?