More on the bid delay, it wasn't Boeing or Lockheed Martin that needed the delay.
https://globalnews.ca/news/6600416/c...t-competition/
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The two American aerospace firms that want the Canadian government to buy their fighter jets say they did not request an extension on the deadline for bids.
At the same time, defence experts say the decision to grant the extension reflects the bigger challenge facing a government that has repeatedly insisted a competition is the only way to move forward with the $19-billion procurement, despite there being a limited pool of options.
“The government believes it needs to run a competition, but there’re many situations where, in reality, there’s only one or two competitors that can actually meet the needs of the Canadian Forces,” said Richard Shimooka, a senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute and an expert on defence.
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Quote:
Because the government is using a process known as phased bids for the fighter jet procurement, bidders get the chance to address any findings of non-compliance with those requirements before submitting their final proposals.
And because of how closely Canada and the U.S. work together on issues ranging from intelligence sharing, continental defence and others, inter-operability – or the ability for jets to work seamlessly across various areas where Canadian and American systems overlap – is considered key to this contest.
“We’ve got to buy aircraft that can be completely and seamlessly inter-operable with the U.S.,” said Dave Perry, vice president of the Canadian Global Affairs Institute and an expert on defence procurement.
Perry noted that in the past, questions around how aircraft will operate between Canadian and American systems hasn’t been relevant because Canadian fighter jets have always been American.
Now, with foreign bidders like Sweden’s Saab, the onus is on them to demonstrate their jets can actually do the work.
“Saab is the only competitor that is not part of either Five Eyes or Two Eyes and as a result, it would have the greatest amount of work in order to meet the requirements of the Royal Canadian Airforce,” said Shimooka.
“Right off the bat, it requires the greatest amount of work for this.”
While the government wouldn’t say which firm asked for the deadline extension, both Lockheed Martin and Boeing offered statements saying it wasn’t them.
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I'd expect that Saab's whole, we'll let you build them in Canada concept won't be enough to overcome that they are behind in terms of key technology requirements to win this bid, and the cost of bringing the JAS-39 to the required interoperability and info sharing will make it not as cost friendly.
At some point, I expect that Saab will follow the other two European competitors.