Canada Liberals to start fighter competition afresh

By Randall Palmer
OTTAWA, Oct 26 (Reuters) - Canada's incoming Liberal
government intends to completely restart the competition for
fighter jets to replace its aging CF-18s, rather than relying on
the proposals already made under the outgoing Conservatives, a
Liberal source said on Monday.
He said the Liberals, who declared during their successful
election campaign that they would not buy Lockheed Martin (N:LMT) Corp's
LMT.N F-35 stealth fighters, would put out a new "request for
proposals," with a redesigned list of what the new planes will
be required to do.
"We're going to put together the requirements we have for
aircraft," said the source, speaking on condition of anonymity.
"I don't think we trust the (Conservative) government's
requirements."
The Liberals take power on Nov. 4, when the new ministers of
defense and public works will be named.
Ruling out the F-35 left open the theoretical possibility of
going ahead with the best of the remaining contenders on the
basis of the bids already submitted, but the source made clear
the new government would instead hit the reset button.
This means it could take years to make a choice. The source
said he expected the decision would be made within the first
term of Prime Minister-designate Justin Trudeau, which ends in
October 2019.
A leading contender has always been considered to be Boeing (N:BA)
Co's BA.N F/A-18E/F fighters, but they are expected to end
production by 2019, possibly earlier, so Canada would need to
move relatively fast if it wanted those.
Boeing and Lockheed lobbyists have often referred to the
benefit of having planes used by the United States, for
interoperability, but the Liberal source said different allied
planes operate together without big problems.
Trudeau shook up the campaign and the aerospace industry
with his Sept. 20 announcement that he would not buy F-35s
He said he expected this to yield savings,
which he would apply to naval ships.
The other contenders in the Conservative government's
competition were Dassault Aviation SA's AVMD.PA Rafale and the
Eurofighter Typhoon - jointly made by BAE Systems PLC BAES.L ,
Finmeccanica SpA SIFI.MI and Airbus Group AIR.PA .
Trudeau had also named Saab AB 's Gripen SAABb.ST as a
potential contender, even though the Swedish firm had already
effectively ruled itself out of the current competition.