Mr. Speaker, I am rising to address a question I originally asked on November 30, 2016, about the decision by the Liberals to unilaterally change the number of fighter jets that the military needs and the decision to sole source the Super Hornet. The question was who wrote those statements of requirement, the air force or the PMO.
As we know, through this whole discussion, the requests and desires of the Royal Canadian Air Force have been completely ignored by the government. The Liberals announced on March 14 that they finally wrote the letter to the U.S. government for the decision to go ahead to sole source 18 Super Hornets. It took them five months just to write one letter. What the Conservatives have been calling on the government to do is actually hold an open and transparent competition so that we can get the best equipment at the best price for the brave men and women who serve us in the Royal Canadian Air Force.
I just want to point out that other allied countries have done full competitions in very short periods of time. The Liberals have punted the decision down the road to make a decision on what plane we are going to buy in a competition five years from now. That is unacceptable. They took five months just to write a letter to the Trump administration on getting permission to buy the Super Hornets.
Denmark ran a fair and open competition in just 11 months, Norway ran a fair and open competition in one year and 11 months, and South Korea ran a fair and open competition in one year and four months. Why are the Liberals wasting five years to hold a competition on the replacement of our CF-18s when the previous government and the Liberal government have already done all the surveys and all the analysis on all the planes that are out there? The statements of requirement can be written today, and the plane could be selected in a relatively short period of time.
If one talks to defence experts like Alan Williams and former commanders of the Royal Canadian Air Force, they all say that this decision can be made in a year and that we can get the best value and the best plane for our troops and taxpayers, while making sure we protect Canadian jobs.
As people know, the joint strike fighter program, the F-35, already employs hundreds of Canadians across this country in more than 100 companies that are already making pieces for the F-35, which is in full production and operation around the world.
We have to remember that, when the minister and the government talk about a capability gap, it is a manufactured capability gap. It is one that they fabricated on their own, and it has no reality or basis in logic at all. The Royal Canadian Air Force has always said that we have enough planes to do the job it is called upon to do, whether it is NORAD or NATO.
We also know that research done by Defence Research and Development Canada back in 2014, a public document that the Liberals will have classified and taken off the website, showed that we have enough fighter jets currently to do the job. There is no capability gap. That report also showed that running a mixed fleet of two or three different types of fighter aircraft is too expensive and too cumbersome for infrastructure training and operations here in Canada through our rather smaller fighting aircraft in the Royal Canadian Air Force.
It is not in the best interests of Canada, the industry, or taxpayers if the Liberals proceed with the sole source and not move immediately to an open, fair, and transparent competition.