Murray B.

You are missing an important point. For more than fifty years there was only one party in Canada, who shall remain nameless, that would tell any lie to obtain and keep power. Now we seem to have another one. There is no way that an "NDP supporter" is going to attend rallies for other parties so she can decide how to vote. Any party "supporter" must already know how they will vote. The NDP used to be better than this.

According to Global News the student was not some undecided waif just wanting to make up her mind. "Layton said Awish Aslam, 19, a political science student, is an NDP supporter..." It looks like the people at the rally had made a good call except this girl knew exactly what actions to take to embarrass the Conservatives anyway. It was a no-win situation for them. The NDP used to be better than this.

What are you trying to say? Is it that only the Conservatives identify potential hecklers in their private rallies and ask them to leave or are you saying that the other parties are somehow immune to heckling and don't have to worry about the problem? One thing I will agree to is that what Mr. Crietien did was far worse than what the Conservatives have done. P.S. Is is just me or is it clear that some of these "trolls" are party employees pretending to be ordinary citizens? That is much more newsworthy than anything they are posting.

Sorry, but your meaning is unclear to me. Is this a reference to the gun registry or have they branched out into other areas? Since we have no constitutional right to property anything can be confiscated with the proper legislation. Cars with V-8 engines must be high on the list.

Thanks for the instant ad hominem. Politics are about as real as a TV show or a comic book so there is no need for insults. Obviously if they wait for the heckler to heckle it will be too late. What all parties do, and have always done in the Television era, is remove potential hecklers before the rally even starts. If they did not do this then there would be constant heckling at every event.

It looks like the opposition is clutching at straws. All parties remove hecklers from rallies all of the time and have done so for decades. This is not something that is only done by the Conservatives. The other parties must know they do this too so it is hard to understand what they hope to gain by making this an issue. Tying the removal of hecklers to this Carson fellow is even more bizarre. It is too bad that the RCMP and Privy Council failed to evaluate the guy properly but it is hard to see what any of it has to do with Mr. Harper. What is really needed here is an investigation to see if the RCMP has become partisan but that is not likely to happen since there is no one who can police the policemen. A voter would have to be very young and inexperienced to fall for any of this play acting.

The prototypes are separate from the rest. They belonged to the Canadian Government and not to Hawker Siddeley Group. The recommendation to destroy the existing aircraft came from Chief of the Air Staff, Air Marshal Hugh Campbell who wanted to avoid “subsequent embarrassment”. There is no trace of any order from the military or Government regarding the destruction research and paperwork so the order must have been internal. It could have come from Hawker Siddeley Group in England or Avro Canada in Malton. It is hard to tell after so many years. What do you mean by “it”? If by “it” you mean a complete weapon system then “it” was not ready for sale at that time. Even the engines were not ready. According to “The Arrow Countdown” by Peter Zuuring page 43, “Charles [Charles Grinyer, VP Engineering at Orenda] said that just before cancellation, the seventh stage compressor rotor was throwing blades without any conclusive solution determined.” He paraphrases Mr. Grinyer again later on page 53, “Charles told me that if they had only had one more year on the project, the Iroquois would truly have met its revolutionary goals.” After the Arrow was built and proved to have excessive drag [it actually did not have a “wasp waist” as we have been repeatedly told] which limited its range to two-thirds of competing aircraft. The U.S. chose to go with a faster, cheaper, longer-range, locally produced aircraft the Delta Dart. In the case of Britain it came down to two British designs the Arrow and the far less expensive English Electric Lightning. They chose the Lightning. As far as France goes there was no chance that they would buy a foreign delta when they were already producing their own for far less money. All of the Arrow’s technology was shared with the other divisions of British Hawker Siddeley Group right from the beginning so your sources of information must be in error. The only reason you are puzzled is because you are assuming the Arrow was the best aircraft ever made. It was a metal-skinned aircraft with vacuum tube electronics and an improper shape for the speeds it was intended to fly. It has more in common with the aircraft of 1954 than the ones from 1958 and there was no way to fix it without starting over. Shredding all the evidence did prevent any inquiry into how the company had managed to spend $308 million to produce a rather mediocre aircraft. Read the minutes carefully and you will see who is actually responsible for destroying all those lives in Malton back then. Think about it. Which party would gain from “embarrassing” the Progressive Conservative Government like that? It looks like Ontarians have been blaming the wrong guy for fifty years. How bad is that?

Yes, a very partisan report did claim this and a major factor was the rising price of fighter jets. It is hard to see how Harper's Government is responsible for the rising price of the F-35. All partners in the Joint Strike Fighter program are experiencing the same cost overruns. Only in Canada could we have our Goverment taking the blame for the actions of a U.S. contractor. This is something I will keep in mind when I vote.

You're welcome.

It is important, jbg, to differentiate between reality and the Avro myth which is a lie that just won’t die.Here is the reality: The Liberals decided to cancel the Arrow in 1957 as described in the October 23, 1963 edition of the Montreal Star, “Gen. Charles Foulkes, chairman of the chiefs of staff committee from 1951 to 1960, testified yesterday that the Liberal Government of Prime Minister St. Laurent decided in 1957 it would cancel the Arrow interceptor program as soon as it was returned to power in that year’s election.” The Liberals lost the election and the Progressive Conservatives took over. The new Cabinet was advised on August 28th, 1958, “Finally, the cost of the CF-105 programme as a whole was now of such a magnitude that the Chiefs of Staff felt that, to meet the modest requirement of manned aircraft presently considered advisable, it would be more economical to procure a fully developed interceptor of comparable performance in the U.S.” Copy posted at http://www.international.gc.ca/department/history-histoire/dcer/details-en.asp?intRefid=8169 [The Arrow was about five times the price of the Voodoo but the improved version was estimated to only have two-thirds the range. Their maximum continuous speed ratings were similar at Mach 1.9 vs. Mach 1.7 respectively and neither aircraft was rated for Mach 2+ as were several other aircraft that were in production around that time.] In 1958 Diefenbaker’s Cabinet decided to continue with the Liberal’s decision to cancel the program. At that point most everyone that knew the details about the Arrow program agreed that it should end. Aerospace Engineering Professor Julius Lukasiewicz described the aircraft accurately when he said there was, “nothing extraordinary about it.” A video containing his words is posted at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eWuZtk8uPP0. Diefenbaker’s Cabinet did the sensible thing by adopting the decision of their predecessors and heeding the council of their best advisors. They did delay the decision for a few months to take steps to preserve the industry but, despite their best efforts, they were unable to save the jobs. It was after cancelling the program in 1959 that a controversy began. Diefenbaker describes what happened in the Montreal Star Feb. 24, 1959, “...The Prime Minister said the company had warning of the Government decision to cancel the CF-105 Arrow supersonic interceptor and knew that $50,000,000 in public funds had been set aside for in the estimates for 1959-1960 to cover winding-up expenses...”I say its attitude in letting out thousands of workers – technical workers and employes – on Friday was so cavalier, so unreasonable, that the only conclusion any fair-minded person can come to is that it was done with the purpose of embarrassing the Government.”” The minutes confirm that the Government did offer Avro $50 million to prevent job losses but the company ignored the money for some reason. The minutes also show that the Government was actively seeking other work for the company. What is very clear is that there is no direct connection between cancelling the Arrow program and the disaster that befell Malton. Destroying the industry was a choice that Avro management made and it was not only “embarrassing” to the Government but went a long ways towards defeating it. [What is very surprising about the events in 1959 is how the Opposition was complaining loudly about ending a program that they had already decided to cancel in ’57.] The Arrow myth is not a matter of a simple misunderstanding but one of political propaganda for the “purpose of embarrassing the Government.” It worked against John Diefenbaker and the myth is still useful against Conservatives today. The myth also wrongly accuses Eisenhower of conspiring to kill the program even though the Arrow was cancelled for reasons of economy and performance, not politics. The U.S. really did want the aircraft to succeed but there was no way they could justify spending $9.7 million for a Mach 1.9 Arrow with 1254 nm ferry range when a U.S. company was already producing a $3.75 million aircraft with Mach 2.3 capability and 1930+ nm ferry range. The rest is mythstory.

How many millions of our tax dollars have been spent promoting lies about the Avro Arrow aircraft? It was an average performer that cost five times as much as competing aircraft. Bona fide historians like Morton and Bliss have said so and the records are clear enough on the matter. See international.gc.ca site The cost of the Arrow is given as nearly $10 million each: [Note that the Voodoos that were purchased instead cost about $2 million each.] The recommendation to cancel came from the military: The Chiefs of staff advised the government that the Arrow's performance was "comparable" to U.S. interceptors. They do not mention anything about the Arrow flying faster, or higher, or further, than anything else. Despite the facts Canadian governments at all levels and all parties have used our tax dollars to spread lies about how great the aircraft was. How much of our money has been wasted on this over the last fifty years?

What does this federation say about the millions of taxpayers’ dollars that have been used to perpetuate the myth about the Avro Arrow. You know the one about how the evil Americans and their lackeys, Diefenbaker and his demonic Conservatives, all conspired to murder our beautiful ‘unicorn’. The CBC’s crock-u-drama alone must have cost millions. Even the taxpayer funded official Canadian Air Force site promotes the myth. Take a look at some things posted on the official Canadian Air Force website. “The Arrow program was unique in that the prototype was built using the same tools and rigs that were to be used on production Aircraft...” - This is known as the Cook-Craigie Plan and it is a method developed by two USAF officers. It was used on the Convair F-102 before the Arrow so the method cannot be “unique” to Avro Canada. “During the test flights, the Arrow had flown at mach 1.96 and up to 50,000 feet, results that are still impressive by today's standard of fighter Aircraft design.” - Many aircraft at the time were this fast and at least the Lockheed Starfighter and English Electric Lightning had both exceeded mach 2 by the time of the Arrow tests. This statement may be true but it is also misleading because it does not give proper context. “The Arrow was a very clean design and many of its features were copied on other North American-made fighters, including today's F-22 Raptor. “ - The F-22 has many features in common with many aircraft of the late fifties and none of them, including the Arrow, compare favourably with the F-22. Even the F-4 Phantom II, which had the best performance of that generation, cannot compete with an F-22 or even with the F-15 Eagle of earlier days. The Air Force has made another misleading statement that is out of context. The Arrow that actually existed had performance “comparable” to aircraft that were half its price or less. The ‘unicorn’ myth was created as part of a conspiracy between U.S. liberals and the Canadian opposition parties to destroy the Conservative government. Fifty years of these politically motivated and often taxpayer-funded lies is enough.

Perhaps the Americans flew one of the saucers up from Groom lake and slowed the Arrow with a gravity beam. They could have also used their weather control machine to thicken the air to slow the Arrow down. Strangely though, Argus, I agree with the poster that we should rebuild the Arrow or a least a digital version of it. It is the only way to know what the performance of the aircraft really would have been with the Orenda engines. I have read much about the Arrow and have discovered some interesting things. What I have found is that Avro could not deliver an airframe that met specifications and the RCAF really did not want the aircraft. The Department of National Defence seems to be responsible for two main things. It issued the specification for an interceptor and then checked to insure that the contractor met the specifications. The original specification is interesting to me for its manouverability requirement. They want 2g turn at Mach 1.5 at 50,000 feet without loss of height or speed. This should have excluded a delta wing planform from the beginning since deltas don't turn without losing speed. Both the NAE and DRB [DND advisors] indicate that the aircraft had more drag then the contractor claimed. The project was cancelled in April '53. Then something strange happened. For some reason it was decided to seek the opinon of an outside agency and they asked NACA (NASA precursor) to review the project. Why would the DND want to do this? I expect that they did not and it is Avro that has gone to the government to demand a third opinion. NACA confirms that the drag is 50% higher than Avro claims. [That is basically what our guys said and I am proud that they knew that. Our military may be small but our guys really know their stuff, Eh?] NACA also recommends "proper application of the area rule" and states that delta wings are a poor planform for high endurance and long range. Avro does not change the wing planform much and only applies the area rule to the nose, intakes and tail section. Many other companies that succeeded in producing Mach 2+ aircraft applied the rule to the entire aircraft from tip to tail. Clearly the aircraft still has a range problem after the fixes, based on information from a once secret memorandum dated 17 Jan 58 which states in part, "A reduction in ferry range to 1254 nm is not acceptable." Not too long after that the program is cancelled for good and then, for some reason, all evidence is destroyed. This is very strange. Since the Arrow's performance is secret at the time there are only three groups in Canada that know much about the problems. The government, the opposition, and the DND. Although the records seem to indicate that it is the DND that initiates the destruction they really don't have a reason to do so. The DND is not responsible for a contractor failing to meet a specification. The Conservatives also have no worries since it is not their program. There is really only one of these three groups that benefit from the complete destruction of all evidence and they shall remain nameless. From where I sit it does not look like the RCAF wants the Arrow but an aircraft that meets their specificatons. It seems like they are trying to get the Arrow cancelled from '53 and keep getting overruled by the politicians. Then they are ordered to take the Arrow and like it but that government gets defeated. Diefenbaker finally does the sensible thing and cancels the program as the DND recommends. It would be nice to actually test the thing to see how it really performed. It makes no sense to build one physically but it should be possible to test a digital model of it. Then we will know what the performance was really like. The NACA report is very interesting because it cost the Americans millions to discover the area rule which was a trade secret and they gave it to us for free. They also provided a B-47 bomber to test the Iroquois engine. It looks like almost our whole country owes the Americans an apology and I for one am very sorry that we accused them of wrongdoing without a shred of proof. P.S. From the Montreal Star, October 23, 1963," Gen. Charles Foulkes, charman of the chiefs of staff committee from 1951 to 1960 testified yesterday that the Liberal Government of Prime Minister St. Laurent decided in 1957 it would cancel the Arrow interceptor program as soon as it was returned to power...Gen. Foulkes confirmed the 1959 statement of Mr. Diefenbaker that the chiefs of staff had recommended cancellation of the Arrow...the chiefs concluded that it did not make any sense to produce an $8,000,000 interceptor in Canada when one could be obtained in the U.S. for $2,000,000..."

Is that the one with the notwithstanding clause that lets any government pass any law that it likes?

Admit it, "ironstone", what makes you most upset is they have declared "non-confidence" before any bill has been tabled. This would be highly irregular unless they have actually seen the yet to be written budget. Don't laugh, all they need is a flux capacitor and DeLorean or chronoton particle generator and they can very easily obtain the next budget now. Without these the coalition is already screwed. Mr. Ignatieff's public statements about seeing the budget first shows that they now understand their fatal blunder. They cannot change governments just because they do not like Mr. Harper. If they do vote against the next budget then we would have a similar situation to the one between China and Taiwan a few years ago. We could have the Republic of Canada in the west and the People's Republic of Canada in the east. No, that is too confusing. How about Canada in the east and Cascadia in the west. These sure are interesting times.