
Federal government cancels F-35 fighter purchase: source
Federal government cancels F-35 fighter purchase: source | canada.com
was this posted yet?

What you are seeing here is that the Harperites didn't reveal the total cost of the F35 while other countries did and Canada's number was so out of alignment something had to be wrong. All the competitors include future cost estimates. These costs are decided by what is covered 'under warranty' and expected 'lifetime' of individual parts. For example, the landing gear may be rated for 500 landings and then have to be replaced at an anticipated cost of $1,000,000.00 or whatever it is. Brakes may be okay for 20 landings then need replacing at what ever that cost is.
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It was also a no-competition bid. Well why not, it's the taxpayers money. Do a backread on this and you will see there are many other options and many other countries who are decrying the cost over-runs of the F35..........
What to do now? How about a real competition where we test all the contenders against realistic, Canadian requirements? I'm sure Harper can find the blueprint left by Pierre Trudeau when his government selected the CF-18. It worked brilliantly last time. It'll work again.
Super Hornet... Dassault Rafale... Eurofighter Typhoon... Sukhoi 37... take your pick. My guess is that Harper will try to throw a bit of oil on the troubled waters and go for the American option, the updated Hornet perhaps with some of the electronics suite envisioned for the F-35.

Norway is buying the planes with engines. Seriously though remember when
we got the good deal on those subs from Britain, they still don't work. The only
good sub we have is in the Edmonton Mall. Canada never gets a good deal we
get a cheap deal and our military pays the price. Norway buys what is needed
and it costs more to buy the right stuff in the first place.

We don't need no fracking espensive junk to play world conquest with. That game is over already except the bleeding and burning. Any contracts signed now can't possibly deliver in time to engage the Russians or Chinese or Syrians in the up coming short war. Wait awhile and we can clean up on surplus stuff.
Every F-22 needs twenty or more pilots during it's service life, according to the mysterious pilot breakdowns.

Doesn't matter anymore. The purchase has been canceled. This is what good government does, change with changing data rather than sticking with a bad plan because it iis their plan.
Now if we could just convince them to look after the more important purchases such as the Sea King replacements that should have been done twenty years ago.

But there a tie-in between the subs and the F-35's, and yes, it has to do with boondoggles. Sometimes it's almost like the reason Canada boondoggles is because the US has said via diplomatic channels that it does *not* want to see a potential threat from the north
.

F-35's and the like are for joint, NATO-style operations, which is not making so much sense these days. Last time anything like that was tried was Yugoslavia, and it did *not* work out in any way called satisfactory.
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Does Libya and Afghanistan ring a bell at all?
What do you need F-22s for chasing off a Cold War Era plane?

Why... do F-22's drive pilots crazy? Canada need *something* to run off Russians who make a systematic game out of seeing how far they can push into northern airspace before being chased off.
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In any case, yes, the Cold War is over, but that doesn't mean an end-of-all-problems. Now Canada is looking at a new situation... what would be a good anacronym for Economic Globalization combined with Global Warming?
There are people-smugglers from India and China sneaking folks into Canada to end up as prostitutes and sweatshop workers because their illegal status means they can't ask RCMP for protection, plus Canada's long, empty coastline makes it so easy to smuggle drugs through that it's an old joke how Vancouver has the highest rate of heroin addiction in North America... it's so cheap and easy to get.
Drones are cheap, and are not made for engaging Russia, China nor Syria in face-front war. They are for patrol, and that's what Canada needs... not just to watch for drug and people smugglers, but to watch for guerrilla resource extractors sneaking around the northern archiapeligo in a way they never could before the ice cap started melting.
F-35's and the like are for joint, NATO-style operations, which is not making so much sense these days. Last time anything like that was tried was Yugoslavia, and it did *not* work out in any way called satisfactory.

Oh, there's none there now, but how would you feel if Canada decided to do something with all that Plutonium from the Candus?
Of course, having an atomic weapon is nothing without a delivery system, and hercs could non-chalantly fly over Seattle or Detroit or Chicago or Boston or Philadelphia or New York or Mineapolis before anyone knew what they were up to...
So, I reitterate... are you *sure* the reason Canada keeps boondoggling military purchases isn't because they're under pressure from Washington to never become a real threat?
Oh yeah... Libya... *sigh*...
But Afghanistan ... that wasn't really NATO... and the CF-18's didn't go there.
No more so than an F-35 then... eh?
In any case, it's not that hard to imagine. The Canadian ambassador to Washington gets called in, and is told:
US: "You must not become in any way a viable threat to the US of A."
CA: "But we have to spend enough on defense to justify our existence as a sovereign nation."
US: "Well, the Brits have four fixer-upper non-nuclear non-missile subs sitting on mothballs... why don't you see what you can do with those... and Lockheed Martin is over budget on the F-35's, so why don't you pick up a handful."
CA: "Hmm... well... the subs should be no problem, unless they catch fire during the Atlantic crossing, but the Privy Council will need time to contact their brokers in Zurich to up their holdings in Lockheed, plus we might have trouble convincing Canadians they actually need F-35's."
US: "That's not our problem... just make sure you don't do anything that could translate into a potential threat against America, or you'll be castrated so quickly you'll feel like the Avro Arrow affair was a pleasant prelude to the prom."
Oh please... put down the KY
It wasn't? Check again
Canada helped design and build the F-35

It's not that hard you know. All you need is the fissile material, good metalurgists, good chemists, and good electricians, all three of which Canada has. In 1966 a study was done of the potential of all non-nuclear nations to go nuclear if they wanted to, and Canada topped the list.

It's a very good thing we didn't develope them in 1966, cus we would have been democratized in 1967.