The Missing First Step

Rona Ambrose has a typically Ambrosian approach to hunting down Canada's next combat jet to replace the stellar but aging CF-18s.

Rona's gonna chat.  She's going to talk to our allies - the U.S., Australia and Britain.   Maybe she wants them to tell us what they want Canada to buy. 

Then she will consult with competing fighter manufacturers and come up with some sort of list, presumably of each aircraft's strengths and weaknesses or how good it looks in Tory blue or something.

And only then will the Air Force wade in with its statement of requirements to identify the winner.

In other words, our artfully dodgy Air Force nobs will be able to tailor their "statement of requirements" for a skintight fit with the airplane they want, the F-35.   And then Rona and Peter and Steve can say that, this time, they crossed all the t's and dotted all the i's.

All that's missing is the critical first step.    That's when the government tells the Air Force just what it wants those planes to do.   What are the priorities for Canada?   Is it to be able to field a mere handful of light, first strike attack bombers and, if so, who are we planning to attack and on behalf of whom?   Is it to have the sort of robust, fast and long-range aircraft needed to patrol and defend Canada's vast north and our coasts?

You see, if we leave out that critical first step - the one where we tell the Air Force what we expect them to do - then they're free to game the process as they have from the get go.   The Harperites get their ideological fetish fulfilled without having to face any public debate and the Air Force boys get to join the Pentagon's aerial Foreign Legion.   Today neither of them is to be trusted.

Madam Minister for Big Hair Puts All You Feminists In Your Place. Now Go Make Steve a Sandwich!

Stephen Harper knows what Canadian women want and who better to say so than Minister for Big Hair and Small Minds, Rona Ambrose?

According to Rompin' Rona, Canadian women don't care about all this abortion nonsense. They want tough law'n odour to keep them safe and happy. Forget about women's rights, or reproductive choice or any of that loony leftie business. Women don't care about that when they can have more of the "crime & punishment" stuff. From TorStar:

“Our government has done more than any other government in the history of this country to keep women safe,” says Public Works Minister Rona Ambrose, who is also in charge of the status of women in the Harper government.

“We have introduced new laws to make sure that we keep rapists and murderers off the street and to make sure that we protect children from sexual predators. That is what women want.”

There you go, see? You really didn't understand what you actually wanted. You were just a bit confused, worked up. By the way we've got this really charming house for you just up the road in a place called Stepford.