Canada faces a much clearer and more present danger than the threat from anything the F-35 fighter jets will shoot down.
That's the hollowing out of Canada's manufacturing industry in southern Ontario and Quebec. Without the tax revenue that vital economic sector produces, Canada might not be able to purchase the military hardware and execute the effective foreign policy the country needs. If Finance Minister Jim Flaherty is concerned about the federal deficit, why is his government spending between $9 billion and $30 billion for the F-35 jets that now even U.S. hawks are concerned will cost, over their life cycle, more than $1 trillion south of the border? Would not this money be better spent to build the infrastructure to spur development of the Canadian economy so the federal government could afford jets sometime in the future?
So rather than save $9 billion or $30 billion on jets or, say, $2.5 billion over five years for provincial and federal governments on new crime legislation in the face of declining law-breaking statistics, the federal and provincial politicians have thrown cold water on one infrastructure project that could stimulate and revolutionize Canada's critical economic corridor from Toronto to Ottawa to Montreal - the high-speed rail project, the subject of a recent feasability report. One could understand the province dropping the bullet train; it has an enormous deficit and massive future financial problems dealing with health-care costs. But the federal government choosing $9 billion in fighter planes over $9 billion in rail, stimulus and infrastructure? Bad choice.
