Who will crash if F-35 program goes down?

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The Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II. A number of countries have cut back their orders for the expensive fighter jets.

When Julian Fantino got the call to enter cabinet as associate defence minister, he must have thought he'd died and gone to heaven.

Great salary, limo and driver, and yet another post of prestige and renown in what for him was a long string of them. And, there was always the off-chance he'd supplant star-crossed Defence Minister Peter MacKay.

Indeed, it was assumed in Conservative circles, at the time of Fantino's elevation, that MacKay was being bird-dogged and on his way to being sidelined, whether because of personal tensions between him and Prime Minister Stephen Harper, or because he was deemed a potential future leadership rival.

Unfortunately for Fantino, it hasn't turned out quite that way. He's been left to carry the can for months, virtually on his own, for the problem-plagued F-35 fighter program. Now that the wheels are truly coming off, with rising costs pushing the Royal Canadian Air Force's minimum 65-plane requirement beyond reach, Fantino has been reduced to wanly repeating talking points that no one, perhaps not even he, believes.

Wednesday in the House, for the first time, the minister appeared to concede his mantra will soon undergo a revision. "Stay tuned," he said after interim leader Bob Rae asked a series of pointed, probing questions about how many F-35s the government now thinks it can buy within its stated $9-billion budget. Thursday, the opposition pressed the attack: "How many, how much and when?"

Tellingly, it was MacKay who took point Thursday. But though his stand-up is far stronger than Fantino's, his answers were no more besmirched by any actual content. For the opposition, this has become like shooting fish in a barrel. "It's the gift that keeps on giving," said one veteran politico.

Here's the difficulty: No one knows the price, not even the manufacturer, Lockheed Martin. From the outset, price estimates have been just that, because the unit cost depends, in any given year, on how many planes are built that year. If all nine of the original international partners -- the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, Italy, Turkey, Denmark, Norway and the Netherlands -- were following through on their orders, on the original timetable, Ottawa might still be able to buy 65 planes on budget (though even that has long been in dispute).

But that's demonstrably not the case now. This week, the Pentagon confirmed the U.S. military is trimming its order, due to spending cuts and technological problems. Though it insists it still plans to buy 2,443 of the jets in the decades ahead, it has postponed orders for 179 units over the next five years, garnering savings of US $15.1 billion.

Italy announced this week it is cutting its order to 90 planes from 131. Turkey has trimmed its order and the British have yet to decide how many of the planes they will buy.

Taken together, that makes the unit cost for Canada a black box.

"I don't think anybody in the world knows the price of the F-35s at this point," said Liberal Sen. Colin Kenny, who has long supported the project.

Here's why the numbers matter. Sixty-five planes based in Cold Lake, Alta., and Bagotville, Que., according to defence sources, is the minimum required to fulfil the primary mission of the Royal Canadian Air Force, which is to provide 24-hour air cover over four Canadian cities in the event of a "9/11" event.

Though armed drones such as the MQ-9 Reaper -- which are indeed being eyed by the government, sources confirm, notwithstanding Fantino's dismissal of this Wednesday -- can complement fighters, they are not a substitute. Drones could be used overseas, on border patrol or marine interdiction. But for overflights of Canadian cities, sources say, only piloted aircraft offer the necessary degree of flexibility, versatility, reliability and safety.

Therefore, fielding a reduced number of F-35s won't do the job, drones or no drones. And that makes it increasingly likely the RCAF will be asked to refurbish a number of its aging CF-18s and keep them flying until 2028, long past their best-before date.

A number of F-35s would then be added to the mix. But that scenario creates problems, too, because of the costs of maintaining two fleets with different systems. "It's a mess," concludes one industry source.

The irony? Not all of this is the government's fault. It signed onto the F-35 program in good faith.

The cost increases now stem from events in the United States and elsewhere, not in Canada. But in their dogged insistence on defending this program, come what may, the Tories have painted themselves into a corner, from which there is now no painless exit.

It's difficult to see how that doesn't roll back on one defence minister or another, sooner or later. Odds are it won't be MacKay.

Michael Den Tandt is a

Postmedia News columnist.

Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition February 21, 2012 A14