
OTTAWA - A battle of numbers has broken out over the Harper government's deal to buy the F-35 joint strike fighter jet. Defence Minister Peter MacKay says the country stands to lose up to $1 billion if the purchase of the stealth jets is scrapped, largely
Honestly, biggest issue for me is that the chairforce gets the best kit they can find, which should mean a competition is in order (and 7/8 years is plenty of time for that). However, I see a major economic imbalance here... Didn't Canada get benifits equal to the costs of purchase of the F-18's back in the 80s, not 1/9th? Further, with the F-18s, being able to produce the whole thing on home soil, we could produce spare parts as needed, and if war broke out we had the facilities available to produce replacements, and not have to rely on other countries to support our needs.
I'm not arguing for or against the purchase, but the way the gov is going about this just doesn't make sense.