What is Peter Mackay doing these days? I had thought he was Canada's Defence Minister, you know the politician in charge of running the Canadian Forces, keeping tabs on everything. Everything, like the purchase of Chinook helicopters, for example. Pete's supposed to keep an eye on that sort of thing, make sure the deal is coming in on budget, on time. Except, according to Auditor General Sheila Fraser, Petey has been asleep at the wheel.
That $2-billion Chinook contract? It's coming in at just under $5-billion. Seems the CF brass said they were going to buy "off the shelf" but then pulled a fast one and ordered modifications that jacked up the price and delayed delivery. Heads should roll, but whose heads? Maybe the Chief of Defence Staff - oh but he's safely retired a long time ago. Whoever came up with the "off the shelf" assurance - he should be out. And what about Harper's Defence Minister, the prime screw up, Peter Mackay? Surely he should be out, gone, shuffled off to Buffalo.
And while we're at it, maybe it's time to take another hard look at that F-35 contract.
3 comments:
Would not be surprised that there were kickbacks galore...
hmm, this makes me think maybe there was method to ol' Jean Chretien's madness in cancelling these things in the first place, even with that big penalty clause -- he still woulda saved us billions, if these clowns hadn't jumped in with both feet to another sucker deal.
What the media virtually ignored with the Chretien EH-101 cancellation was that it wasn't the helicopters that Chretien objected to but the insanely expensive, state of the art, anti-submarine suite Kim Campbell ordered for it.
As the former Soviet navy was rotting on the beach in its home ports, she wanted to simply ignore that and buy super expensive equipment for a threat that no longer existed.
The weaponry Campbell wanted on those helos cost more than the basic military version of that aircraft. And, Lest We Forget, Chretien also inherited a country on the verge of fiscal collapse.
Post a Comment