Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Canada gets buyers remorse on F-35 after 500% price increase

After years of assuring the Canadian public that the F-35 is the only option that meets the needs of the Canadian Forces, Defense Minister Peter "Pinocchio" MacKay faced the cameras today to announce that he'd changed his mind.

"Maybe it's not the only option after all" he admitted. "Heck, maybe it's not even an option!"

MacKay's change of heart followed the release of the latest inquiry into the supposed cost of the F-35. The fighter was originally sold to the the Canadian voter as a $9B project for 65 planes, or roughly $140 million per. With the latest numbers we're now up to almost $700 million per plane, and we're still three years away from the first deliveries!

Not hard to see where that trend line is heading; an easy billion per plane by the time we're defending Canadian sovereignty with them. And as much as we'd like the new toys, that's a bit much to expect the folks to sit still for in this age of austerity.

So Pinocchio and a couple of dozen senior guys in the procurement chain have reluctantly let go of their dreams for Lockheed Martin consulting contracts and will continue to beat the bushes for the next best thing.

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