F-35 fighter jets to cost Canada nearly $74 billion: PBO

Owning and operating a fleet of F-35 fighter jets over the next four and a half decades is expected to cost Canadian taxpayers as much as $73.9 billion, the Parliamentary Budget Officer said Thursday in a new report.

Yves Giroux says the figure represents the full life cycle cost of the advanced aircraft, from development and preparation through operations to final disposal.

He said the estimate is broadly in line with the estimates produced by the Department of National Defence, which has said it anticipates the total price tag to be somewhere around $70 billion.

The first four of the planned 88 aircraft are expected to arrive in 2026. Deliveries will increase annually to a maximum of 18 per year in 2029. The final tranche is expected in 2032.

The Liberal government formally announced in January that it would buy the U.S.-manufactured stealth fighter — ending a more than decade-long public debate about which aircraft should replace the air force’s aging CF-18 jets, which were purchased in the 1980s.

At the announcement, the defence minister at the time, Anita Anand, pegged the cost of buying the fighters at $19 billion. 

“The total cost of the acquisition phase, including not just the purchase cost of the fighter jets but all acquisition phase activities, is projected to be $19.8 billion, according to our analysis,” Giroux said in a statement.

The operations and sustainment phase is estimated at $53.8 billion, he said.

The last aircraft is expected to be retired in 2060-61, when it has reached the end of its useful life.

The new estimate is a far cry from the original projection, presented 13 years ago by the former Conservative government, which said buying and operating the aircraft would cost $29 billion over a 20-year period. 

That estimate was questioned by a previous parliamentary budget officer, Kevin Page, whose report kicked off a series of public battles that resulted in the Conservative government shelving the proposal to buy the F-35 without a competition.

The Liberals came to power in 2015 promising not to buy the Lockheed-Martin-built aircraft.