Wouldn't it be great if Canada's fighter planes -- the CF-18 -- could be deployed to Afghanistan where they might be able to play a supporting role to the 2,500-odd Canadian troops there? You're right, it would. But, sadly, Canada's CF-18s are shut out of any theatre of war where our allies are are operating because Canada's fighter jets simply don't have the right gear.

If you want to put your fighters into the same theatre as U.S. and U.K. forces, your fighters must -- and I underline, must -- be equipped with what I'll call "smart bomb" technology. Remember in Gulf War I when we saw video of a missile zeroing in on a target and then explode? Well, that's smart bomb stuff. The U.S. have it. The U.K. has it. Even the French have it. (That's why they were able to deploy Mirage fighters into Afghanistan recently to support NATO troops there.) But Canada's fighter jets don't have it.

We know we need it, mind you. Five years ago, Canada's Air Force generals started the ball rolling to put these systems on our fighter jets.

But now, as my colleague Graham Richardson reports tonight, we seem to be a ways off from getting it.

Bureaucrats at Public Works and Government Services Canada awarded a $150-million contract to upgrade our fighter jets so that they would have this capability to Lockheed Martin. This will be Lockheed Martin's first contract to upgrade CF-18s with this capability.
Meanwhile, Northrup Grumman, which also bid on the Canadian contract and have done lots of these upgrades, is appealing the PWGSC decision and, so far, is doing very well with that appeal.
Northrup, I might add, has won this contract against the same competitors in six other countries -- including the U.S. and Australia -- versus the same competitors but couldn't do it in Canada.

So, to recap: In 2009, Canada's ground forces combat configuration in Afghanistan almost certainly will end. If the government is thinking about sending Canadian fighter jets post-2009 over there to help, forget about it. They can't go until they get the mandatory piece of kit that just about every other one of our allies has. And the work of getting that kick has been delayed by some bureaucratic bungling.

Oh -- and here's the kicker: Canadian taxpayers have already forked over $140-million for the smart bombs that we can't yet fire because our planes haven't got the smart bomb firing system installed yet.