CF-18s do not meet the requirements required to provide national security | CBC News

Two RCAF CF-18 Hornet fighter jets fly over Winnipeg. The air force doesn't have enough qualified technicians to maintain the jets or enough fighter pilots to fly them. (Royal Canadian Air Force/Twitter)

Tuesday saw the presentation of the fall report of the Auditor General of Canada, Michael Ferguson. Likewise, it has been said that the auditor general has destroyed the liberal plan to keep the CF-18 flying until 2032. And is that Ferguson has raised doubts about national security and even long-term security, due to his report.

In this report, the recent change of policy in the Department of National Defense is methodically discarded. It requires that the military have enough combat aircraft to fulfill Canada’s commitments with NORAD and NATO at the same time.

What the audit says exactly

In the audit, it is understood with exactitude, “The combat force could not fulfill the requirement because the National Defense already had shortage of personnel, and the CF-18 was old and increasingly difficult to maintain”.

It should be noted that the CF-18 squads have been presenting a series of problems since April 2018. Likewise, the CF-18 of the air force assumed a shortage of 22 percent in technical positions. Added to this, something that is extremely alarming is that many technicians were not fully qualified to perform the maintenance of the same.

Meanwhile, that is not the only problem present and that is that fighter pilots are also scarce. It is important to mention that the air force loses more and more pilots. In fact, among those who remain, almost a third do not get the 140 hours of flight required per year.

After the aforementioned report was released, Defense Minister Harjit Sajjan acknowledged the shortage of staff during a press conference. In fact, he said that it had been identified “from the beginning” after the Liberals took power in 2015. Sajjan expressed “This is a problem we knew we had”, and likewise added, “This is what happens when they do not put enough resources in the army”.

Likewise, during the press conference, Sajjan expressed that the maximum commander of the army had been directed to deal with the problem. In fact, the recruitment of pilots has been classified as “a priority”.

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Source: Murray Brewster | CBC News