Canadian firms are pushing back against being shut out of any role in the military’s proposed purchase of a new surveillance plane and are raising questions about recent claims made to parliamentarians by the top bureaucrat at National Defence.
Bombardier, which is lobbying the Liberal government to allow an open competition for a new aircraft instead of having the deal given to Boeing, issued a statement challenging the testimony of government officials at the Oct. 17 committee. Matthews did not respond to a request for an interview, but he did provide a statement: “I am proud of the work DND/CAF experts and maintainers continue to do on the CP-140, which continues to perform its duties exceptionally well despite its age. While the Block IV upgrades will ensure the CAF have sufficiently advanced equipment to conduct required operations until 2030, a complete replacement will still be required as the aircraft is losing relevance, while adversaries get more complicated.
Canadian defence industry officials also questioned Matthews’ claims by pointing out that in 2022, for the second year in a row, a RCAF team flying a modernized CP-140 Aurora beat out crews from the U.S. Navy, Royal Australian Air Force, Indian Navy and the Japanese and Korean militaries in an anti-submarine warfare competition and exercise. A number of those nations flew the P-8 at that time.
Federal officials had requested information from industry and received 23 responses, including one from the Quebec-based aerospace firm Bombardier, which had pitched a proposal to build the planes in the Toronto area. Kawasaki responded to Canada’s request by highlighting Japan’s P-1 surveillance aircraft, now flying with that country’s military.
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