Parliamentary budget office digging into Super Hornet fighter jet costs
OTTAWA — Six years after ripping into the Conservative government’s cost estimates for F-35 stealth fighters, Parliament’s budgetary watchdog says it is digging into the “interim” Liberal plan to purchase Super Hornet jets.
The Liberal government announced last month it wants to buy 18 Super Hornets as a stop-gap measure until a competition can be held in five years to find a replacement for the air force’s aging fleet of CF-18 fighter jets.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau blasted the previous Conservative government for “botching” the replacement of Canada’s CF-18s as he defended the plan to purchase Super Hornets before a “genuine, rigorous, open competition.”
“We wouldn’t have to be going through an interim supplying process if the previous government had actually been able to do the procurement job that they had been tasked with,” Trudeau said Monday during a year-end press conference.