Canada is a country blessed — or, make that cursed — with a long history of utterly catastrophic military procurement failures. The multi-decade Sea King helicopter replacement escapade springs immediately to mind (and it will endure for at least a few weeks longer before the last Sea King is retired). As does the disastrous purchase of rusted-out British submarines to replace Canada’s elderly sub-surface fleet; only in recent years has that 1990s-era procurement actually begun producing functioning warships. The pathetic end of service for our last two supply ships, retired without replacement because they were simply unsafe to operate any longer at their advanced age, must surely also make the list.
But even against that history of spectacular disgrace, the Liberal government’s handling of the Royal Canadian Air Force’s CF-18 fighter jet replacement still stands out as an especially shameful display. Although it’s too soon to say for certain, future historians may well come to regard this slow-motion train wreck as the defining Canadian military procurement embarrassment.
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