Thursday, October 28, 2010

Iggy To Cancel F-35 Contract

Previously the leader of the Liberal Party had announced that he would review our contract to purchase new fighter jets from Lockheed Martin, but now he has done another "Iggy flop" and would cancel the contract if elected into the Prime Minister's Office. I don't know if this has to be approved by the House of Commons before we buy the jets, but if so just make it a private members bill and Iggy won't be there to vote on it. His shit smells too sweet to waste his time with technicalities like voting on legislation, so if we ever need to pull a fast one on him, just pass initiatives on PMBs and half the Liberal caucus won't even show up.

And could the media stop reporting this as a 16 billion dollar contract? The cost of buying the jets is almost half of that, but months ago somebody decided to include the cost of maintaining the fleet over a long period of time in the total cost of the package. Question; how much are we currently spending to maintain our obsolete fleet? The CBC hasn’t mentioned it. It has to be expensive. Will the cost of maintaining F-35s be more than our current planes which were falling out of the sky at a recent airshow? You can't include the cost of owning them in the purchase price because we already spend billions of dollars maintaining obsolete jets that we already own.

Do the Liberals want a repeat of the Sea King fiasco? It helped get Chretien elected, but scrapping the contracts proved to be a terrible move for Canada.

6 comments:

  1. Its Déjà vu all over again.
    I wonder how many Liberal supporters have good memories?

    Alberta Bob

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  2. "... could the media stop reporting this as a 16 billion dollar contract?"

    Good point. I've even heard $18B and $19B as the cost for the F-35s.

    Whatever the actual purchase cost + maintenance costs are, they are spread over a number of years, not all paid out in one fell swoop. This also has not been made clear, neither by the media nor by the government itself.

    Also, retirees like Assistant Deputy Minister Alan Williams should have the good grace to remain RETIRED, i.e. realize they are no longer in a position to make decisions, and should keep their opinions to themselves, rather than presume to be able to override a duly elected government's decision making power.

    And as Wilson pointed out at BLY, wasn't the purchase of those British lemons -- otherwise known as submarines, one of which caught fire & resulted in the death of Lieut. Chris Saunders on the HMCS Chicoutimi -- wasn't that purchase made under the watchful eye of Alan Williams?

    Also, the Liberals have quoted the PM when he was involved in formulating policy for the Reform Party back in the early '90s, when he apparently opposed purchasing the Sea Kings, if what the Liberals said during today's QP is to be believed. Even if true, I wish all parties would refrain from revisiting the past and deal with current issues instead. Do all the MPs currently occupying seats in the House hold the exact same ideas they held 17 or 20 years ago? Was the situation at the time exactly the same as today?
    -- Gabby in QC

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  3. A private member's bill still has to be put through the House.

    There is an expensive maitenance contract to keep the current fleet going, but given current financial hard times, don't you consider it more prudent to, maybe simply send some change to maintain the aircraft better instead of buying new ones for kajillions?

    I'm in favour of a versatile and capable military that can project our defense, but perhaps now is not the best time to be making this type of move....

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  4. One thing that everyone keeps forgeting is that there is no actual contract to cancel. There is a m o u but no signed contract committing us to these planes.

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  5. Anonymous at 3:12 am
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memorandum_of_understanding
    “A memorandum of understanding (MOU or MoU) is a document describing a bilateral or multilateral agreement between parties. It expresses a convergence of will between the parties, indicating an intended common line of action. It is often used in cases where parties either do not imply a legal commitment or in situations where the parties cannot create a legally enforceable agreement. It is a more formal alternative to a gentlemen's agreement.
    In some serious cases, depending on the exact wording, MoUs can have the binding power of a contract; as a matter of law, contracts do not need to be labeled as such to be legally binding. … “


    Granted, I don't know what the exact wording of this particular MoU is, but it stands to reason that if the previous Liberal government agreed to invest almost $170 million in R & D for the F-35, and the consortium involved in their development is proceeding with the F-35s, why wouldn’t Canada also proceed with the purchase, especially if it means our aerospace industry gets first dibs at maintenance contracts?
    --Gabby in QC

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  6. Meanwhile ,while the opposition squawks about monetary cost, those violent militias and religious fanatics i was talking about continue to manouver into other African countries-
    http://www.nationalpost.com/news/Five+countries+seen+falling+Qaeda/3709498/story.html

    We will need those new fighters to bomb more of these havens for terrorism.

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