Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre called the prime minister "incompetent" for buying 88 F-35 fighter jets, years after criticizing the Conservatives for attempting to do the same.."Justin Trudeau said that buying the F-35s would be a 'nightmare' for taxpayers. Now he is buying 88 of them. Phoney. Out of touch. Incompetent," Poilievre said on Twitter..On Monday, Defence Minister Anita Anand announced Canada will spend $19 billion to buy the stealth fighter jets. Each fighter jet, which will be purchased from US weapons manufacturer Lockheed Martin, will cost $85 million. .Canada won't see its first delivery until 2026 and the first F-35 will not be operational until 2029, according to senior defence officials..But Poilievre highlighted Tuesday how, during the 2015 federal election campaign, Trudeau criticized then-prime minister Stephen Harper for attempting to buy the same jets.."A new Liberal government won't buy the overpriced F-35 stealth fighter jet," Trudeau promises in a video from 2015 that Poilievre posted to Twitter..In the video, Trudeau claims the F-35 is too expensive and doesn't actually function as a stealth fighter. Concerns have been raised with the F-35s' relatively slow speed and maneuverability, as well as its difficulty operating in cold weather.."Well, this is now the fighter jet that Stephen Harper wants to buy, no matter what it costs. That F-35 might be Stephen Harper's dream, but I can tell you that for Canadian taxpayers, it will be a nightmare," Trudeau says..Conservative defence critic James Bezan also ripped into Trudeau, claiming it took too long for the Liberals to determine the F-35s were the appropriate aircraft for Canada's military. He said the Liberals engaged in "political games" to avoid embarrassing the prime minister.."This is a situation where he originally said he would never buy the F-35 and did everything in his power to stop it from actually happening, but at the end of the day, this is the only modern fighter jet that can deliver the capabilities Canada so desperately needs," Bezan said.."And so here we are today, where Justin Trudeau has to eat crow and do what's right for Canada, do what's right for the Royal Canadian Air Force, and do it right for our NORAD and NATO allies.".The quest to replace Canada's aging F-18 fighter jets goes all the way back to 2010, when the Conservative government announced it would buy 65 F-35s. The costs at the time totalled $9 billion for the planes and $7 billion for maintenance and training..But in 2012, Harper's government postponed the decision to buy the F-35s over their ballooning cost. An auditor general's report found that the Department of National Defence misled Parliament on the true costs of the F-35 program, saying they would cost $16 billion, when the Conservatives knew the true price tag would be $25 billion..“We were asking questions. Why weren’t the cabinet ministers asking questions?” Liberal defence critic John McKay said at the time. “Stephen Harper is not fit to be the prime minister of Canada. He must resign.”
