Madam Speaker, I first want to thank my colleague from Beauséjour for his excellent contribution to this debate. I am happy to add my own contribution for several important reasons.
First, I am a former member of the military and I know how the government should ordinarily go about purchasing equipment. Second, equipment purchases often have a huge dollar value, and as a responsible government, we must ensure that we spend taxpayers' money wisely, especially when we have unprecedented budget deficits and a growing national debt under this Conservative government.
It is irresponsible to spend taxpayers' money unwisely, which is clearly what the government is doing in purchasing these F-35 fighter jets. My party certainly recognizes that Canada needs to replace the CF-18s, which will reach the end of their useful life by the end of this decade. It is our duty to make sure our military personnel are properly equipped for the demanding work they do. I hope everyone is in agreement on this.
So how should we proceed? Certainly not in the way this government has decided to proceed.
There is a very well established procedure within the Government of Canada when it comes to purchasing equipment. I was myself involved in using this procedure during my career as an engineer in the Canadian navy.
This acquisition procedure is a tried and true process, which has proven over time to be the best process when it comes to making expensive government purchases
It is not unlike the process that we ourselves, perhaps more informally, use as simple citizens when we make purchases, particularly big purchases, in our own lives from time to time, such as buying a new car or putting a new roof on our home. Obviously most Canadians are careful when they spend their own money.
Therefore the question is: Why can this government not be careful in spending the taxpayer's money?
Let me take the House through the normal acquisition process, and I am sure it will agree with me that this is the proper way to replace our current fighter jets.
First, we have to recognize that our fighter aircraft are aging, the technology they use is outdated, maintenance costs are increasing, and so on. In short, it is time we replaced them with more modern equipment. As well, the roles our fighter jets are expected to play may have changed. We therefore need a new model that can handle these new roles.
This brings me to the second step in the process: defining roles. Yes, we need fighter jets, but why? What are their missions? The answer may seem obvious, but we also need to ask this question: who is the enemy? We have to recognize the primary role these jets play, which is to help us protect our territory, but we also have to consider our alliances with NORAD and NATO, in particular, and the missions we could be asked to take part in because of those alliances. In short, why do we want these fighter jets?
Third, once we have defined the roles we expect of our fighter jets, we undertake the task of defining the technical requirements for this new fighter aircraft, its performance capabilities: how fast it can fly, its endurance between refuelings, its capability to operate with other aircraft from other nations, the amount of payload it can carry, particularly weapons payloads, its manoeuvrability, its survivability and so on.
Once that is defined, we go shopping. We put out an RFP, a request for proposals, and we wait for the bids to come in. We typically involve three government departments, PWGSC that manages the contract, DND that defined the initial requirements and then goes out and evaluates the bidders, and finally Industry Canada that addresses the issue of industrial and regional benefits.
Let me take a bit of time to talk about Industry Canada's role because it is a very important one for Canadians to understand. Industry Canada has a responsibility that could be summarized as follows: when Canada spends billions of dollars offshore purchasing equipment like fighter jets, we also negotiate important offsets with the winning contractor.
Those offsets are in fact guaranteed, and they require the winning contractor to provide business to Canadian companies in an amount equivalent to the value of the contract. This is allowed to occur over a certain period of time, and typically Canada tries to ensure some regional distribution whenever this is feasible.
What is also important to remember is that these offsets can offer the opportunity to transfer intellectual property to Canada, thus building capacity in our aerospace industry. This transfer of intellectual property can be particularly important for the in-service support, or ISS, of the equipment we are purchasing.
When the Liberal government purchased the CF-18s in the early 1980s, it was far-sighted enough to insist on the transfer of intellectual property that would allow Canada to undertake its own maintenance of the aircraft during its lifetime. As we all know, lifetime maintenance costs are usually greater than the initial acquisition costs. This was a very smart move on the part of the then-Liberal government, because it allowed a Canadian company to build expertise in the maintenance of a top-of-the-line fighter aircraft.
Let us go back to our process. Once the bidders on a contract are evaluated, both in terms of performance requirements and the offsets they are prepared to offer, we are then in a position to select the best aircraft for Canada, the best aircraft for the defined missions, and the best industrial and regional benefits for the Canadian aerospace industry.
Why are they the best? Why is this the best way of going about it? In one word, it is because it is a competition. By definition, when a competition is held, the best deal is found. Everybody knows that.
Let us now look at what is happening with the current government and its intention to purchase the F-35. Did it hold a competition? Clearly not. First the Minister of Industry told us in 2008 that we would hold a competition. Then earlier this year we had the Minister of National Defence tell us, yes, the government was going to hold a competition based on the high-level requirements that were presented in the spring of this year.
Then on a quiet summer morning in July, the government announced that it had held a competition based on a high-level requirements list it issued in the spring and that the F-35 was the clear winner.
In actual fact the Minister of National Defence contradicted this on many occasions when he said in this House of Commons that the real competition took place about 10 years ago, back in the late 1990s, a competition that we all know was not a Canadian competition but a competition run by the Pentagon to choose its new joint strike fighter.
Were other jet fighter manufacturers invited to respond? No. Even though companies like Boeing, which makes the Super Hornet, or Dassault, which makes the Rafale, believe that they meet the requirements issued by the government last spring.
Now we have a fighter jet that is still in development and that could cost us a fortune to maintain. The Pentagon is worried. The Norwegians are worried. The British are worried. The Dutch are worried. The Australians are worried. Here is an excerpt from ABC News on November 5.
Australia's biggest defence purchase is under a new cloud over reports the Pentagon is preparing to reveal a cost blow-out and even more delays with the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. The US-based program has been beset with problems and the Defence Department is putting it through an extensive and thorough review. Critics of the aircraft say each one will easily cost Australia more than $100 million.
There are many other quotes that I could give, from respected authorities who have also corroborated the fact that this airplane is not yet out of the woods. It still has further development to undergo. It still requires further design modifications, which raises the possibility that this aircraft could be very expensive to maintain throughout its life.
That is the situation, and I hope it is not as dire as some critics of the program have made it out to be. What is clear, though, is that this government's message that everything is just great rings false.
We have reason to be concerned about a government that has an annoying tendency to award military contracts without holding an open competition. The Auditor General talked about this in connection with the Chinook helicopters.
The government is being irresponsible with Canadian taxpayers' money. We have pointed this out. We must go out for a fair competition.