A review commissioned by the Canadian government to evaluate whether the country should proceed with plans to buy Lockheed Martin’s [LMT] F-35 or consider other aircraft in a possible competition has been completed, the country’s minister of public works and government services said Thursday.
The minister, Diane Finley, said the independent review put the Royal Canadian Air Force’s “feet to the fire” but did not reveal its conclusions during a speech at a forum in Vancouver.
Two years ago, Canada appointed four experts outside the government to review the options for replacing the fleet of CF-18s following a scathing auditor general’s report about the cost of the F-35s.
“They have now completed their work,” Finley said, according to a transcript of her speech posted on her agency’s website. “Over the next several weeks we will be carefully reviewing a number of reports relating to the evaluation of options, industrial benefits, costs and other factors related to the decision to replace our CF-18 fleet.”
In addition to the F-35, the panel reportedly examined Boeing’s [BA] F/A-18 Super Hornet, the Eurofighter consortium’s Typhoon, Dassault’s Rafale and Saab’s Gripen.
The Canadian government originally decided to pursue 65 F-35s in a non-competitive tendering because it is the only stealth multi-role fifth-generation fighter on the market. But the auditor general’s report in 2012 stated the government misled the public about the overall price of the aircraft’s life-cycle costs, according to Canadian media reports. That led to the current review.
The F-35 program has been plagued for years by developmental problems, cost overruns and delays that have prompted the U.S. government to restructure the program.
There are seven international partners at varying tiers of investment on the F-35’s development, including the United Kingdom, Italy, the Netherlands, Canada, Denmark, Norway and Turkey. In addition to Canada, Italy and Turkey are also re-evaluating their participation in the F-35 program and may delay their plans to buy the aircraft or reduce the number.
Israel, Japan and South Korea have announced plans to buy the F-35s as well under the U.S. foreign military sales program.