…the true cost to the Canadian government of operating its planned fleet of 65 F-35 fighters. The government had said the cost would be only $14.7 billion, but that sum is only for the planes’ first 20 years’ operation, and not their expected 36-year lifespan. “That’s a known distortion,” Alan Williams, a former Canadian military procurement official told the National Post. “If you have as your intent to be as open as possible, you don’t do that.”