It wasn't just a troubled warplane that crashed and burned with Harper's decision to cancel the purchase of the troubled F-35 light bomber. The legitimacy of the Harper majority government crashed and burned alongside it.
In addition to the robocalls and other election chicanery, Harper won his majority by lying his ass off about the true cost of the F-35 programme. Harper lied, MacKay lied, the whole sorry lot of them lied straight into the faces of the Canadian public.
Look at it this way. If the Harper regime's chronic and blatant lying had been exposed just a few days before the vote, does anyone think he would have won a majority? He probably would have been run straight out of power. If we had caught Harper out on his lies in time, today's Tories might look a lot like the PC's in the post-Mulroney apocalypse.
Stephen Harper doesn't speak for the Canadian people any longer. He speaks for his hardcore supporters, fair enough. But he can't claim to speak for those he conned into voting for him with his bald faced lies.
The Harper government is illegitimate. And that illegitimate government has no right to push something like the Northern Gateway pipeline down my province's throat.
If Harper had any integrity he would step down, resign. He should be scheduling the next moving van back to Calgary. His cabinet should resign, especially all those tainted by the F-35 scandal, all those who added their own lies to Harper's.
You cannot attempt to scam the Canadian public out of thirty plus billion dollars and claim yourself fit to govern. That's a breach of the public trust that, in a better world, would send a fraud artist like our prime minister straight into one of those new prisons of his.
Yet Harper is already working furiously to spin his way out of this. It's going to come down this way:
1. Oh no, we didn't cancel the order. We hadn't actually ordered the plane anyway.
2. We already announced we were going to hold a full-fledged fighter competition. The F-35 is still in the running, sort of.
3. Sure the numbers look really bad but how were we to know? We didn't lie, the bureaucrats kept us in the dark. We can fix that by firing a few senior civil servants.
I only hope somebody in the opposition ranks has the guts to nail Harper on this. I hope.
10 comments:
Did you see this article ? (H/T Big City Lib) http://www.calgaryherald.com/business/Yedlin+Federal+resources+minister+stops+short+endorsing/7644242/story.html
I damn near fell outta my treehouse on reading that.
Canada as the North American 'platform' for the export of U.S. and Canadian liquefied natural gas to Asia ???? This is what Harper and Oliver think ?
We're seeing eggsucking rhetoric/backspin and 'balanced approach' support/non-support re Israeli settlements .. Palestine/United Nations from the International Law Firm of Harper & Baird while they look to popularity polls for inertial guidance.
The military consultancy of Harper - Mackay, Fantino - Ambrose is meeting secretly with actual military folks to script and rehearse talking points about F-35's .. to defend complete lies, distort actual facts, and deny constant bureaucratic leaks
The wild salmon are completely f'd .. the Minister of Fisheries & Oceans had a heart attack before the Cohen Commission went public.. was replaced by Gail Shea, the former failed DFO Minister. Now there's some serious regression.
The environment.. that mysterious habitat of all creatures Canadian - excepting Conservatives.. is in need of life support under Peter Kent's careful execution of environmental economist Stephen Harper's vision
Gun control you say? Pensions ? Asbestos ? Muslims ? Afghanistan ? Abortion ? Accountability ? Asian Military Bases ? First Nations ? Torture ? Prorogues ? Electoral Fraud ?
Surely Peter Van Loan or Fred DeLorey will dispense the great western leader's experimental evangelism and proclamations on all these matters.
I think you're right.. and he's working on his 'legacy' (exit strategy/legal defence strategy) and trying to ensure he gets at least one postage stamp with his face on it.
The best bet for Canada is to extend the life of the CF18, the superhornet offers nothing we need. Use the extra cash to develop the Dash 8 as a drone patrol/bomber. The F35 is done, it was never a solution.
The F-35 should bring him down. But, unfortunately, not one of his own MP's has the guts to call him on it.
And, until some of them do -- or until the next election -- he will continue to hold court.
Hi Sal. That's some rundown. I think you touched all the bases. As for that article whatever she's trying to say is pretty confused. It's an opinion piece from the Calgary Herald after all. Oliver's remarks about bringing bitumen "to tidewater" made me cringe.
@ Steve. A limited lifetime extension for the CF-18s is possible but it's poor value for the money. Even good fighters, like the 18, wear out hard and that certainly includes Canada's. The Dash 8 wouldn't cut it in either role you envision and I don't know anyone who suggests it.
@ Owen, I fear you're right. Something might come out of the KPMG numbers coupled with the leaked 'disclosure' stuff but I doubt it.
Harper will probably go into survival mode, all but shutting down parliament, while he tries to push through Northern Gateway. We know he doesn't give a damn about Parliament or Canadian democracy. He means to rule by fiat if necessary and he's got a lapdog Governor General who won't stand in his way.
I read in the Economist that the Dash 8 is a near perfect platform for low intensity combat like Libya etc.
Rebuilding the CF18 might be cheaper than buying the Superhornet, and really does it make any differance, both planes are dogfood in a dogfight with a PAK.
Stephen Harper, April 8, 2011. “You have to understand that in terms of the F-35 costs, we’ve been very detailed with those to the Canadian public,” Harper said after releasing the Conservative platform in Mississauga, Ont. ”A lot of the developmental costs you’re reading in the United States, the contract we’ve signed shelters us from any increase in those kinds of costs. We’re very confident of our cost estimates and we have built in some latitude, some contingency in any case. So we are very confident we are within those measures.”
Julian Fantino, November 9, 2011. “We will purchase the F-35,” Fantino asserted. “We’re on record. We’re part of the crusade. We’re not backing down.”
Julian Fantino, November 18, 2011. “There’s a plan A, there’s a plan B, there’s a plan C, there’s a plan Z and they’re all F-35s,” he said.
W News release, July 16, 2010. The Government of Canada today announced it is acquiring the fifth generation Joint Strike Fighter F-35 aircraft to contribute to the modernization of the Canadian Forces, while bringing significant economic benefits and opportunities to regions across Canada.
Peter MacKay, September 15, 2010. “This is the right plane. This is the right number. This is the right aircraft for our Canadian forces and for Canada,” he said. ”If we don’t make this purchase there is a real danger we’ll be unable to defend our airspace, unable to exercise our sovereignty or unable to share our responsibility to both NORAD and NATO.”
Stephen Harper, November 3, 2010. ”We are going to need to replace the aircraft at the end of this decade, and the party opposite knows that. But instead, for the sake of getting the anti-military vote on the left, with the NDP and the Bloc, the Liberals are playing this game. The mistake is theirs. It would be a mistake to rip up this contract for our men and women in uniform as well as the aerospace industry.”
Peter MacKay, December 13, 2010. “Mr. Speaker, let us look at the actual contract. What the Canadian government has committed to is a $9 billion contract for the acquisition of 65 fifth generation aircraft.”
Stephen Harper, January 14, 2011. “I do find it disappointing, I find it sad, that some in Parliament are backtracking on the F-35 and some are talking openly about cancelling the contract, should they get the chance,” Harper said at the Heroux-Devtek plant in Dorval.
Stephen Harper, January 14, 2011. “I need your help making MPs from this region and elsewhere in Canada listen to reason,” Mr. Harper told workers at Héroux-Devtec, which is manufacturing door and wing parts for the F-35. “Honestly, I can’t understand how a Liberal MP from the Montreal region would want to cancel this contract. It’s unbelievable.”
News release, July 16, 2010. The Government of Canada today announced it is acquiring the fifth generation Joint Strike Fighter F-35 aircraft to contribute to the modernization of the Canadian Forces, while bringing significant economic benefits and opportunities to regions across Canada.
Peter MacKay, September 15, 2010. “This is the right plane. This is the right number. This is the right aircraft for our Canadian forces and for Canada,” he said. ”If we don’t make this purchase there is a real danger we’ll be unable to defend our airspace, unable to exercise our sovereignty or unable to share our responsibility to both NORAD and NATO.”
Stephen Harper, November 3, 2010. ”We are going to need to replace the aircraft at the end of this decade, and the party opposite knows that. But instead, for the sake of getting the anti-military vote on the left, with the NDP and the Bloc, the Liberals are playing this game. The mistake is theirs. It would be a mistake to rip up this contract for our men and women in uniform as well as the aerospace industry.”
Peter MacKay, December 13, 2010. “Mr. Speaker, let us look at the actual contract. What the Canadian government has committed to is a $9 billion contract for the acquisition of 65 fifth generation aircraft.”
Stephen Harper, January 14, 2011. “I do find it disappointing, I find it sad, that some in Parliament are backtracking on the F-35 and some are talking openly about cancelling the contract, should they get the chance,” Harper said at the Heroux-Devtek plant in Dorval.
Stephen Harper, January 14, 2011. “I need your help making MPs from this region and elsewhere in Canada listen to reason,” Mr. Harper told workers at Héroux-Devtec, which is manufacturing door and wing parts for the F-35. “Honestly, I can’t understand how a Liberal MP from the Montreal region would want to cancel this contract. It’s unbelievable.”
Stephen Harper, January 14, 2011. “Contracts like this are not a political game,” Harper said, speaking from a blue podium with government Action Plan slogans perched in front of him and behind him. ”It is about lives and, as you well know, it is about jobs.”
Peter MacKay, February 25, 2011. ”Many figures have been circulated on the cost,” the minister said in a speech Friday before the Conference of Defence Associations. ”Let me repeat it. $9 billion. I have no idea where these other figures are coming from. They’re simply made up — or they’re guessing. If this procurement is cancelled … so another competition can be held, it will cost taxpayers $1 billion and will create an operational gap for the air force in the future.”
Stephen Harper, March 10, 2011. Mr. Harper told reporters on Thursday that he refused to “get into a lengthy debate in numbers.” “This is the option that was selected some time ago, because it is the only option available,” he said. “…This is the only fighter available that serves the purposes that our air force needs.”
Yes. They lied to Parliament. They lied to the electorate. They stole a majority (because they would have been ousted by a coalition otherwise).
No legitimacy.
We have a duty to push them from power.
And then haul them up on charges.
@ Steve. I think you've got this pretty thoroughly chronicled that you should draw up the indictment. Going back through the statements you've catalogued truly is stomach churning.
As for the Economist's recommendations, a Dash-8 would be easy meat for even the oldest, dime-a-dozen, shoulder-fired SAM. One soldier, sitting in a ditch, could take out your aircraft, its systems and payload, and three or four highly-trained airmen. That doesn't sound sensible to me.
@ Thwap. You're right, they should be up on charges, only we'd have to essentially criminalize politics the same way we do any other fraud. Only when the guy shows up at granny's door to swindle her out of a few thousand bucks he's not breaching any public trust and yet we still throw him behind bars. Try to swindle the Canadian people out of thirty or forty billion bucks and it's not even a summary-conviction offence.
The Governor-General, if he had any cojones and wasn't indebted for his job to Harper, should dissolve Parliament. He's supposed to represent the Queen and Canada but he's in Harper's pocket instead.
I don't know about the Dash-8, but the more commonly spoken of Predator and newer, bigger and more heavily armed Reaper turn out not to be as great a deal as typically believed compared to more standard aircraft. They require a huge crew, it's just on the ground. They require a lot of maintenance. They can cruise a long time per sortie, but they manage very few sorties per week compared to conventional aircraft. And while cheaper per unit than, say, F-35s, they are nonetheless surprisingly expensive. Armed drones are not the cheap easy disposable armament people often imagine them to be.
Maybe Dash-8s are different, dunno.
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