Well, Stephen Harper takes one step forward and three steps back. I first heard that Harper is considering resurrecting the Canadian CF-105 Arrow, a fighter jet Canada proposed to build but scrapped. Unlike the expensive insider trading jets he wants to squander the entire military budget on and more these jets actually work in the arctic. Generals have criticized Harpers jets because they can’t be used for protecting Canada’s arctic. They are meant for the oil wars. Building jets in Canada will create high tech jobs here and give us a better product that we can actually use in Canada. One step forward.
Then he sets up a committee to study privatizing prisons to “save money.” That is an evil lie. Look at the horrific problems California had when they privatized their prisons. A private prison is mandated to make money. Just like the private power brokers who sell power to BC Hydro at inflated rates, their mandate is to rip off tax payers. A privatized prison is not mandated to consider inmate rehabilitation. Private prisons are bad just like private power has proven to be. Three steps back. I knew it was too good to be true. Stephen Harper doesn’t care about jobs in Canada because he is not a conservative. He is something else.
Update:
My bad. Harper didn’t even consider the Arrow. Some company made a presentation to him. He insists on pressing forward with his insider trading jets that won’t even work in the arctic. Firing any military officer with a brain and promoting poster puppets that will say what he wants is very dangerous for the nation.
Sun News is reporting “In appointing air force Lt.-Gen. Tom Lawson to be Canada's next chief of defence staff, Prime Minister Stephen Harper is sending the message about as loudly and clearly as he could that Canada is going to spend billions on F-35 stealth fighter planes no matter what.”
All this with today’s news that Harper wasted $750,000.00 on legal fees fighting Canadian Veterans over claw backs to their pensions and benefits. Killing the Arrow again, spending billions of tax dollars on US jets that won’t work in the Canadian arctic to a company his candidate lobbied for is a crime. Committing that crime while he cuts funding to the military and claws back their pensions and benefits is disgusting. It’s a sad day for Canada. I thought we took one step forward, three steps back. Unfortunately we didn’t even take that one step forward and in reality have just taken twelve steps back. It’s a sad day so it is.
Ah yes, the Avro Arrow...what a shame that was, a plane far ahead of it's time...torpedoed by the military industrial complex.
ReplyDeleteBuilding a high tech aviation capability in Canada would be a good thing.
Privatizing prisons would be a bad thing. I worked in a Max Sec joint a long time ago, and I think that both public and private are bad news. They're prisons. But of the two, I believe the public is the lesser of the two evils, if only for reasons of accountability. If it costs a little more (and prisons are VERY expensive to run) I think it's a cost that has to be born given the nature of what we're talking about. Save money by actually getting in there and doing some good budget work, and prioritization. Not by turning over prisoners to a private corporation. I'm not a big fan of convicted criminals but I wouldn't do that to them.
If we are going to privatize federal and provincial government services, let's also privatize government itself and eliminate the politicians. A corporate-style of government is all we would require for the robot monitoring of privatized services.
ReplyDeleteBu the problem was/is, that the Arrow is an Official *Interceptor*, not a fighter jet that clears skies. Its sole purpose was to turn on those huge afterburners; and rocket to the height of the Soviet Bomber threat, far North. Then use the new generation of missiles to knock out the nuclear threat.
ReplyDeleteUn-fortunately, this style of aircraft became redundant in the early 'sixties' age of ICBM's...
While you could (and have) made the point that it was originally conceived to counter the threat you reference,the development of ICBM's did not mean there was no possibility of air dropped devices. In addition,the Soviet "Bear" bombers were used for long range recon and the mission of being able to rise to altitude quickly and cover long distances was still extant. Given the size of the Canadian Arctic, it still is, even more so with the current reality of needing to be able to enforce Canada's territorial claims in the face of Russian encroachment. This is why the MIG-21, which is equally an pure "interceptor" aircraft is still used by so many third world nations who cannot afford the latest Russian designs, it still does very well what it was designed to do even a half century after it's development. I submit that the Avro Arrow was a much better craft than the MIG-21 is.
DeleteSure the original design of the Arrow was old but I'm sure they've worked on it by now. If the F-35's can't be used in the Canadian arctic then they are obsolete for protecting Canada. Sorry, I just can't see anything good in that guy. Everything he says is a lie. More money for prisons. Yeah right. He closed Kingston and cut funding for prisons. Cutting funding for the military then spending billions on insider trading jets to a company his candidate lobbied for so his political party gets a kickback is criminal. Harper should be in jail.
DeleteTR78: "the development of ICBM's did not mean there was no possibility of air dropped devices."
ReplyDeleteBut it did mean the end of a large, fixed-wing A-Bomb assault on NA. Therefore, the need for Interceptors as the main fighter was gone. The need has been for multi-role a/c that can dogfight. That was learned in Vietnam; against primitive, Soviet fighters, like the poor MIG-21 mentioned. The Phantom was also a pure *Interceptor;* that showed its general-purpose uselessness there.
What we need is not a six-decade old, pure Interceptor, for nothing; we needed, as always, the Hornet E/F, a cost effective multi-role advanced air-fighter.
Can't disagree with most of that, I'd like to see it license built in Canada as the F-86 Sabre was. If not in whole (which is probably impractical) at least final assembly so there is some of the money being kept in house and returned to the economy.
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