Quote:
Originally Posted by Hack&Lube
The government screwed up and should have just come out and said in the first place that there were to be no other options on the table but they didn't have the balls to do that and go against the federal mandates about going back to market and getting fair competition for everything so they wiggled their way in and out (changing the numbers, avoiding direct answers, being found in contempt, etc.) and that's where all this controversy comes from.
They should have just said from the beginning that we were going to buy these at whatever price they ended up as as we have already committed a sizable investment into development and built up the Canadian aerospace industry to be integrated with the development and support of this fighter.
What the Harper government should probably do now is to deflect blame to the Americans to get some heat off of them. If you contract with a company to supply you with something and you commit your budget years in advance and that company suddenly says that the prices are going up, you fight it. Canada should be fighting this with Lockheed Martin and the U.S. Government right now. They should even try to spread this fight out and get our other allies (many Western powers have bought into the F-35 program) to also complain about skyrocketing costs. Pressure the U.S. Government and let them deal with it if they want to maintain goodwill with their allies, continue selling us their expensive weapons, etc.
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Anyone who really looks into the matter can figure this our pretty easily. Maybe they don't feel it's necessary to state the obvious.