Liberal's fighter jet plan trashed by auditor general | Power & Politics

The Liberal government's plan to havethe Royal Canadian Air Force continue flying CF-18 fighter jets until 2032 was trashed by the auditor general. Michael Ferguson's fall report not only criticized the government's plan to replace the aging planes but it showed the air force doesn't have enough pilots or technicians to fly those it already has.



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[renegeorge]

lots of double talk and blaming the Harper Government but no results

[richardshort]

Don't worry about a lack of pilots. The aircraft will fly themselves.
After all, the budget balanced itself, didn't it?

[ekimne]

Amazing. I've never seen a CBC reporter be so hard on someone from Trudeaus govt.

[chasedenvantersmedia]

Sajjan is not qualified to speak on the Canadian military.
The Trudeau government is a disaster.

[bradyakubovic]

10 years from now they will still be talking about replacing fighter jets.
What a joke.

[TYKX]

This guy talks like Trudeau. What have you done in the past two years? "Oh we have a plan."

[tommywong]

Military plays a really important role in negotiation internationally. People dont see it.

[crashweaverda]

Never heard so much babble in my life.

[spencermorrell]

The reason pilots are leaving is because nobody wants too fly a price of crap with no plan to replace them.

[bladesinthewind]

He was struggling to answer because he knew his answers were pure BS. All he was (failing) to do was run around the questions he was being asked

[johnpatz]

So, they've known about the problem for two years, and when asked what they've done, the response is "we've prioritized recruitment" and when asked how many have been recruited he says "We have to look at how many we need...." So wait a second, why wasn't that done two years ago? This guy is a stereotypical politician, he doesn't want to give definite answer, or a date for anything, since that way he can't be proven wrong.

Want to retain military? You know what has been known to work? Retention bonuses, at one point I know the US military gave up to $50, 000 bonuses to retention in needed fields, and that was during a time when we weren't even involved in a dozen conflicts overseas, and it did wonder. For combat pilots they could easily give then $100, 000 to $200, 000 in retention bonuses, or even increase pilots pay a similar amount (over the term of the enlistment) and still save money due to cost and time involved in replacing them.

Note that the various sources I have seen show that training a pilot to the point they are ready for their first operational assignment is in excess of $10 million USD, so giving these pilots an extra $50k a year bonus, even if a pay increase, so during their second term of service they would get an extra $50k a year, $100k extra for the third, etc... would still be a huge cost savings, and would likely go a long way toward helping with retention. Yes, it will cost a lot of money to keep pilots, but it's a fraction of the money it would cost to replace them, not counting the similar fact that it can take 3-5 years to fully train a replacement, and that only gets them ready for their first operations assignment so while they would have a bunch of flight hours, but no real operational experience, so in effect you are replacing a star quarterback with an unproven rookie, which yes, will sometimes need to be done, but even then you need experienced pilots to not only train the rookie to that point, but for them to follow in their new squadron.

Money can't solve all problems in the world, but it can solve a lot of them, and even the ones it can't it can make them less of an issue. For example Pilot A might be happy with the pay, but unhappy with the living conditions, but for an extra $50k a year, he might not have an issue dealing with those conditions for another term (although if he is unhappy with the living conditions the government should find out why and resolve it if possible as well, which then not only eliminates what made that pilot, and surely many others unhappy, but makes ALL of the pilots realized they're complaints are being listened to and addressed, and that as much as anything will help with retention.

[RT-gsfj]

Analysis analysis analysis is that all they ever talk about unless it includes robbing the middle class

[jimlogagianes]

Let’s quadruple the cost by delaying the purchase. Incompetence at the federal level is incredible .

[rgun]

Could a government be any more incompetent

[CCMphilip]

Wow... The HR issue is only surface in 2016..? Kidding me! Recruitment only now? What is the Defense Minister doing all this He has zero timeline and zero sense of urgency!!!!

[larrymacdonald]

Why is no one talking about the money we already invested in the development of the F-35 We where supposed to get but now the Liberals changed all that.... what a huge waste of money....

[kevinschmidt]

No the most costly miss of them all is a lack of export capacity for our natural resources.

[stevewilliams]

What a joke ....! Canadian military flying theses out dated jets that are 50 years old . bidding to different countries to buy new jets . these politicians dont no anything about aviation . joke definitely not US military what a joke....!

[seancooper]

Boy, I really hope we don’t have to defend ourselves... it’s wouldn’t last long. Good on this reporter. Real news.

[pogo]

Minister did not say how many pilots have been recruited and if there has been a net gain (new pilots minus pilots retiring).