Fight Over Fighter Jets

With the long gun registry vote behind them, one of the next big battles for the Liberal Party will be the $9 billion dollar purchase of 65 fighter jets. Ignatieff acknowledges that our current fleet needs to be replaced, he just doesn't know if he will accept the current proposal. While we are only buying 65, thousands of these jets will be sold worldwide and for our participation in the research, development, and production of these aircraft; the Canadian aerospace industry stands poised to gain $12 billion dollars in parts contracts. Yesterday the leaders of the Canadian aerospace industry gathered in Ottawa to plead with the Liberals to allow the contract to stand. Failure to do so would cost our country many high value jobs and block billions in foreign dollars from entering Canada.

And to those people who want to add the maintenance cost of planes we haven't purchased yet to the initial price tag, I ask how much do we spend annually to maintain our current outdated fleet? Ironically none of pundits who get sanctimonious about the maintenance cost of new planes never talk about our current planes that crash at air shows.

I understand the Liberals have fallen in love with their latest position because of the romanticism over Chretien's defeat of Mulroney due in part to the promise to cancel the contract for helicopters that it turned out we really needed. It was a mistake the first time they took such a position, and just because you won an election with that as a promise does not mean that it is the right thing to do. We should have bought the damned helicopters! We would later see sea kings crashing into the ocean on rescue missions, and we would need to call the Americans to rescue our rescue crews.