Well, glad to see the senate is awake and engaged. I have been ranting about the price the Americans came up with for these f-18 turkeys - $ 550,000,000.00 US each ! That is unheard of since they are still peddling them for less than 100M each.  And they are nothing more than coastal attack aircraft, not anything like we need.

I think there is a clue in the article. As follows:

Increasing Canada’s fighter fleet to 120, up from less than 80 functional CF-18s today.

Now, it would appear that if we plan on increasing our fighter fleet to 120, we won't be buying F-18's, we will be buying Swedish Gripens, which is just what we DO need. I would prefer Russian, but I doubt we could dance that one past NATO (if it still exists in 5 years).