I wonder how the strongly increased pressure from soon-to-be president Trump for all NATO members to spend at least 2% of GDP will affect things in Canada? Last I checked Canada was far away from 2%.

Me thinks they can “afford” a mix of SH and F-35 in the future, even if it is not very cost-effective.

Our economy is much larger than Australia’s. Same for population. While we have a very different geographical challenge, Canada could easily afford to double defence spending. If you believe the government’s calculation of 1.5% of GDP (instead of the 1% the rest of the world believes it to be), there is still room for a 33% increase in spending to hit a NATO target. That 33% could cover the gap on the Surface Combatants and pretty much 80 of whatever mix of fighters we want. The money is there…the question is political will. The real constraint in Canada is recruiting. We do not have the bodies to staff an larger military. I think you will see Canada relying more and more on automation (Like the FREMM for the CSC project). Pragmatic alternatives.

It might be worth educating yourself on how Canadian Hornets have been used operationally for the last 30 years, a hint is that most of it starts with “bomb” and ends in “ing”…

The operational history section on the wiki page should be a good first start. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/McDonnell_Douglas_CF-18_Hornet

Nope. 90 percent of hours flown have been domestic. The primary mission….overwhelmingly…..has been sovreign airspace defence.

Probably although the press release also uses the term acquisition which carries the connotation of ownership against lease.

More importantly overall, Canada will continue to remain a partner in the JSF program, from the press release,

They also state how important the economic considerations of the replacement fighter will be.

Assuming that while remaining in the program Canadian companies will still be able to bid for JSF work at least until a replacement aircraft decision is made. Given the timeframe, it is quite possible the economic benefits of selecting the F-35 will trump anything else, Canadian companies could well be provided with enough work from initial dev to then to have returned the entire contract value of the new acquisition.

Canadian companies are already benefiting from the F35 program investment. The Gripen is still very much in play. The Typhoon and Rafale are out.

Next few days will be interesting: Canadian aerospace & defense firms are going to fight this. They know this will impact their bidding on F-35 contracts (even though Canada is technically staying in the program by making payments). Interim buy pushes fighter competition out past 2020.
Trudeau et al. saving face with an expensive half measure, one that will hurt Canadian companies.
Stick with the F-35, or don’t at least get some industrial participation. This is double stupid.

There will be no short term impact to Canadian industry and maybe none long term, unless they back out of the program all together. The F 35 is not combat ready. This was a major slap in the face for a program looking for revenue from early adopters. Very happy we did not commit to the F35 at this point.

I am not happy that the Typhoon was not given a fair shake. This interim buy eliminates the Typhoon from consideration as it is to expensive to operate in a mixed fleet. The same can be said for the Rafale as it would need a large buy to ammortize Canadianization costs.

At this point we are looking at a three horse race as the Gripen E will be reaching FOC about the same time as the fighter selection process completes. As I have said before (to much ridicule here) I think Canada is very likely to be operating a mixed fleet going forward. SH and the Gripen or F35. We shall we what happens in the next phase. The size of the purchase was too small in my opinion. They should have bought 36 of them. They clearly are walking the political tightrope.

So it looks like things are moving ahead. All 5 planes will be available when Canada purchases.