Canada's commitment to the F-35 program is looking less and less commited as time goes by.
This week Junior Minister of Defense Julian Fantino went out of his way to point out to critics that the contract to buy the fighter plane that doesn't fly isn't actually signed yet. You only talk like that if you're leaving an exit open.
Could be all political smoke and mirrors of course. The Harper gang is revealing the latest budget tomorrow. It's widely expected to be a slash-and-burn nightmare. Expect cuts to everything except prisons and the defense budget.
In that climate it's hard to justify the F-35 deal. The cost keeps going up as the performance benchmarks keep coming down. Most of the "allies" in the joint strike fighter project have already abandoned the plane or seriously cut back on their commitments.
Ironically, it's the allies who Harper and MacKay claim are the reason for our purchase. We need the plane to be able to fight alongside out allies.
Fight who?
That's a separate but obviously related topic. NATO membership is a major point of pride among a certain species of Canadian military types who fancy themselves big players on the world stage.
If one of our NATO allies like Turkey or Albania get themselves into a shooting war, the rest of NATO is obliged to help them out.
Canadians should look at a map, read up on Turkey and Albania, and then decide if it's time to scrap not only the F-35 contract but the NATO alliance as well.
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