F-35 fighter jets to cost Canada nearly $74 billion: PBO
First 4 of 88 aircraft to be purchased expected to arrive in 2026
Owning and operating a fleet of F-35 fighter jets over the next four and a half decades is expected to cost Canadian taxpayers as much as $73.9 billion, the parliamentary budget officer said Thursday in a new report.
PBO Yves Giroux said the figure represents the full life cycle cost of the advanced aircraft, from development and preparation through operations to final disposal.
There are a couple of caveats to that assessment, however. The PBO says the air force needs to take delivery of the aircraft on schedule and the warplanes will need to be flown within the limits defence planners expect; otherwise, the lifetime price tag would be higher.
Giroux said the estimate produced by his office is broadly in line with the estimates produced by the Department of National Defence, which has said it anticipates the total price tag to be somewhere around $70 billion.
The first four of the 88 aircraft being purchased are expected to arrive in 2026. Deliveries will increase annually to a maximum of 18 per year in 2029. The final tranche is expected in 2032.
Giroux said it's important for the federal government to stick to the delivery deadline.
"Should there be delays in the delivery of these fighter jets for whatever reason, if there's a slippage by a year, that would increase costs [by] about $400 million. Or should there be a two-year slippage, the increase in costs should be about $700 million," the budget officer said.
The air force is also predicting that the Canadian F-35s will fly less than their U.S. counterparts, which would translate into lower maintenance and fuel costs over the lifetime of the aircraft.
"Our understanding is, what DND plans on doing is flying these jets less on average per year than the U.S. Air Force. And so there's already savings in that respect, and [the expectation of pilots] using more flight simulators than actual flying hours," Giroux said.
That portion of the assessment drew the scrutiny of former senior defence official Alan Williams, who said it's hard to predict decades in advance how often the fighters will need to be flown.
Williams said he hopes that air force planners are not being too conservative in their estimates in order to make the cost more palatable.
"The usage of the F-35 should be directly related to the role the government sets for them," said Williams, who was in charge of purchasing at the Department of National Defence in the early 2000s.
"Obviously, if you can use lower-cost options, like simulators, you should do so. But if there was insufficient funds to use the jets to fulfil the mandate, then I would tell the government to reduce the mandate or increase the funding."
Acquisition cost pegged at $19 billion
The Liberal government formally announced in January that it would buy the U.S.-manufactured stealth fighter — ending a more than decade-long public debate about which aircraft should replace the air force's aging CF-18 jets, which were purchased in the 1980s.
At the announcement, the defence minister at the time, Anita Anand, pegged the cost of buying the fighters at $19 billion.
"The total cost of the acquisition phase, including not just the purchase cost of the fighter jets but all acquisition phase activities, is projected to be $19.8 billion, according to our analysis," Giroux said in a statement.
The operations and sustainment phase is estimated at $53.8 billion, he said.
The last aircraft is expected to be retired in 2060-61, when it has reached the end of its useful life.
The new estimate is a far cry from the original projection, presented 13 years ago by the former Conservative government, which said buying and operating the aircraft would cost $29 billion over a 20-year period.
That estimate was questioned by a previous parliamentary budget officer, Kevin Page, whose report kicked off a series of public battles that resulted in the Conservative government shelving the proposal to buy the F-35 without a competition.
The Liberals came to power in 2015 promising not to buy the Lockheed-Martin-built aircraft. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau pledged to buy a cheaper alternative and put the savings back into revitalizing Canada's navy - process that is still ongoing.
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