Article content continued

In 2016, the Liberals launched a plan to buy new Super Hornet jets from Boeing as an interim measure, only to scuttle that deal a year later because of a trade war involving the U.S. firm.

Instead, the government says it will now buy used F-18 jets from Australia. But that purchase is already running into delays.

Pat Finn, the Department of National Defence’s assistant deputy minister of materiel, told the Commons defence committee in February that Canada is looking for delivery of the used aircraft in the summer of 2019. The Liberal government originally planned for the arrival of the first used aircraft in January 2019.

Photo by Sean Kilpatrick/Canadian Press

The purchase of new jets, which will eventually replace all of Canada’s CF-18s as well as the used aircraft acquired from Australia, will unfold over the next 14 years. Some of those who attended the industry day in January noted that the purchase, which would see a contract awarded in 2021 or 2022, seems drawn out, considering federal procurement officials have been involved in trying to buy a new jet since 2010.

The restrictions on what industry can say about the jet project is not the first attempt by the Liberals to crack down on what information might make its way to the public or news media about the multi-billion-dollar program.

As fighter aircraft and their component systems are sensitive, heavily controlled goods, it is also critical that (government) procurement officials remain the definitive source of publicly shared information

In November 2016, it was revealed the government brought in an unprecedented gag order that prevents 235 military personnel and federal workers from ever talking about the program. The non-disclosure agreement for the equipment project puts the fighter jet replacement on the same level as top secret counter-terrorism missions undertaken by the Joint Task Force 2 commando unit, as well as clandestine operations by the country’s spies, military sources say.

The permanent non-disclosure agreements were at the time uncovered by Conservative defence critic James Bezan after he requested information through the House of Commons “inquiry of ministry” process.

The DND claimed that such agreements have been used with procurement staff before on occasion.

But Alan Williams, the former assistant deputy minister for materiel at the DND, has said that he had never heard of such agreements.

dpugliese@postmedia.com

Twitter.com/davidpugliese