'We won’t do business with a company that is
busy trying to sue us and put our aerospace workers out of business,' Trudeau
said Monday
DAVID PUGLIESE, OTTAWA CITIZEN
Published on: September 18, 2017 | Last
Updated: September 18, 2017 1:41 PM PDT
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says Boeing can forget
about selling fighter jets to Canada as long as its trade complaint is ongoing
against Quebec aerospace firm Bombardier.
Trudeau’s comments Monday, the toughest yet in the
ongoing battle between Boeing and the Canadian government over the complaint
against Bombardier, appear to jeopardize not only Boeing’s current proposal to
sell interim fighter jets to Canada but its hope to sell Canada additional
aircraft in the future to replace the CF-18 fleet on a permanent basis.
“We won’t do business with a company that is busy trying
to sue us and put our aerospace workers out of business,” Trudeau said Monday
during a press conference in Ottawa with British Prime Minister Theresa May.
Speaking in French, Trudeau later accused Boeing of trying
to eliminate “tens of thousands of jobs through their attack against
Bombardier” and said the American company “should not expect us to buy planes
off them if they are attacking our industry.”
May also said she will raise the issue of Boeing’s trade
complaint against Bombardier with U.S. President Donald Trump when she meets
with him later this week. May recently asked Trump to intervene in the
situation as the British government is concerned about the impact on jobs at
Bombardier’s plant in Belfast, Northern Ireland.
The Liberal government had wanted to buy 18 of Boeing’s
Super Hornet fighter jets to provide Canada’s military with an interim solution
while it worked on acquiring a permanent replacement for its aging CF-18s, but
that plan was derailed in April when Boeing filed a trade complaint against
Bombardier.
Boeing’s complaint to the U.S. government holds that
Bombardier’s civilian passenger-jet program has been subsidized, which in turn
allowed it to sell its C-Series civilian passenger aircraft at below-market
prices. At Boeing’s behest, the U.S. Commerce Department and International
Trade Commission launched an investigation.
On Monday the prime minister described the C-Series
aircraft as “excellent” and said that Canada will protect the aerospace jobs
associated with the plane. “The actions that Boeing has taken is very much in
their narrow economic interests to harm an international competitor,” Trudeau
said.
Boeing officials, however, pointed out in the wake of
Trudeau’s comments that the company is not suing Canada; its trade complaint is
aimed at Bombardier.
Marc Allen, Boeing’s president of international business,
has said the company took its action to ensure a level playing field in the
industry. He said Boeing believes that global trade only works if everyone
plays by the same rules — which hasn’t been the case for Bombardier, he said.
Allen and other Boeing officials have argued that the Super Hornet deal should
not be connected to a commercial trade dispute.
Trudeau’s tough stance is good news for Lockheed Martin,
which is hoping to sell Canada its F-35 stealth fighter both as interim
fighters and as permanent CF-18 replacements.
Lt.-Gen. Dennis Luyt, the head of the Royal Netherlands
Air Force, recently told the Ottawa Citizen his organization has been providing
updates to Canada on its F-35 purchase and aircrew training. “They are very
interested in our experiences,” Luyt said. The Netherlands is purchasing the
F-35A as the replacement for its F-16 fighter jets.
Dutch and U.S. F-35s appeared at the Abbotsford, B.C. air
show in August. Two F-35s will travel to Ontario this weekend to appear at the
air show in London.
But a decision to buy F-35 jets for the interim fighter
aircraft program could be potentially embarrassing for the Liberals. During the
2015 federal election campaign, Trudeau vowed his government would never buy
the plane. Later, as prime minister, Trudeau claimed the F-35 “does not work.”
Lockheed Martin says its F-35 fighter aircraft fleet
recently exceeded 100,000 flight hours.
• Email: dpugliese@postmedia.com
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