Moonbox

Because it's a 50 year old airframe and costs about 1/15th of what a CF-18 does and about 1/60th of what an F-35 does. If Great Britain was still flying 25000 Spitfires would you still consider them a potent air threat or would you realize that they'd be shot down in droves with no chance of retaliation by more modern fighters? You can't air forces by number of units. South Korea is modernizing their fleet with updated 4th generation craft. If they wanted to triple or quadruple their air force budget, then maybe they'll spend the money on the F-35's because that's what they'd need. Something tells me that's not likely. Japan and Korea can't match Chinese spending. The best they can do is make sure they're a sharp thorn.

That's where your math pretty much ends there. If the NDP wins 100 seats it would be at the Liberal's and the Bloc's expense. Considering the Liberals ended with 77 seats with 26% support last year, and that they'll be splitting a vote with the NDP, the math doesn't even come close to 60 seats. They're looking at catastrophic losses and ending up with at best maybe 50 and possibly as low as 30. Best case projections right now are 100 seats for the NDP but history has shown us that the vote doesn't usually materialize. The Conservatives would still be able to run the government and Harper would place nice with Quebec throwing them favors in order to get the Parliament votes needed to pass law. Duceppe could support Harper based on these favors saying he is doing things for Quebec and both parties would probably end up gaining support in Quebec. Regardless of the math I highly doubt that the Liberals would survive joining up with the NDP. It would further legitimize them and set up Layton as the natural alternative for Harper. I think it would be far more likely the Liberals support Harper than Layton, or that the party breaks up altogether like the PC's did split between them, before Ignatieff makes Layton PM. I think the rise of the NDP in the polls is more protest than anything. It's an anti-Harper vote and it's materialized because Ignatieff is every bit as ineffective as Dion was but probably even more unlikable. The Liberal Party appears to be self destructing and it's kind of sad to see to be honest.

If Jack finishes second and the Liberals support him then he'd have little to no chance of governing. The CPC would fight tooth and nail against him, the Bloc would villify them and the Liberals would be ruining themselves by supporting them. Jack needs a majority or close to it to have any chance.

Lol nicely stated. It couldn't possibly be the fact that the NDP is joke party with joke policies and joke candidates. Nope...it's all the evil media...

What's the point in presenting a platform if you're not intending to carry it (as much as possible) through?

The F-4's don't even count. They'd be nothing but missile shields in the air. Japan's running an effective airforce of about 200 Eagles and soon to be 100 Mitsubishi F-2's. Regardless, The prospect of them buying close to 400 F-35's, which would double the effective size of their airforce, is REMOTE. Considering the state of their economy I'd go almost as far as to say IMPOSSIBLE. What the hell are we supposed to take from that? I know if I look at their history they've shown a tendency towards cheaper fighters. Even their newest fighters (F15-E) are cheaper today than the CF-18 was in 1977. Now all of the sudden we're expecting them, while they're currently in the process of replacing their old cheap fighters with new cheap fighters, to go out and buy several hundred F-35's at $100-130M a pop? How does that make sense???

We haven't heard on a bunch of them but once again we've got pretty overwhelming support from the printed media for the conservatives. The Liberals are in shambles and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to see that the NDP's platform was meant for a party who never intended to win. It's an unrealistic pile of garbage. From the Waterloo Record (a Torstar subsidiary): However, Canadians should be concerned that the higher corporate taxes and barriers on foreign investment he advocates will kill economic and job growth. Layton promises tens of billions of dollars in new spending. He says his cap-and-trade program to cut greenhouse gas emissions would raise $3.6 billion in his first year to pay for other environmental initiatives. Not only is this ambitious, it is impossible to set up such a program so quickly. Yet, so many NDP plans rest on this infirm ground. Overall, the NDP platform appears designed for an election campaign the party thought it could never win. Layton talks fiscal prudence. But his economic plan is reckless and would lead Canada in the wrong direction. At the very least, Canadians should look beyond Layton’s confident smile to the fine print of his party platform before entrusting him with a vote. And they should also question whether a party that won so few seats in the last election — just 37 — is ready to hold the reins of power. http://www.therecord.com/opinion/editorial/article/523785--record-s-view-tough-choice-facing-canadians-in-election

No your point is just confusing. You said that Hitler should have invaded Britain following Dunkirk. That would have been a bad decision (and bad military advice) because he had no control of the English Channel by sea or air. His lieutenants thought it was a bad idea too so what are you even talking about?

Japan's effective airforce isn't 6x bigger than ours. They have around 200 thirty year old F-15's and about 100 F4 phantoms which were obsolete 30 years ago so you can hardly even count them. The Japanese are also building around 100 brand new enlarged and updated F-16's which are coming online right now. If the Japs keep the same mix of new and vintage fighters moving forward, they'll MAYBE need 100 new fighters in the next 10-15 years and it's no guarantee they'll be F-35's. South Korea's airforce operates on budget fighters. They're flying the bargain F-16's and old balls F-4 and F-5 (which were getting shot down by Mig-21's in Vietnam). They've already ordered about 50 updated F-15E's to bring their airforce up to date so it's unlikely they'll be buying large numbers of F-35's. Look at the numbers again I'll say. The markets simply ARE NOT there.

The Republicans are so far out of the Canadian political spectrum the comparison is pointless. Even the Democrats in the US are more right wing than our Conservatives. As for deficits, the bulk of our debt is still a direct result of Pierre Trudeau. We had almost no debt before Trudeau took over and by the time he was gone our debt level was 50% of GDP. The interest payments on then servicing that debt were so high that even though Mulroney ran balanced operating budgets, he still ran massive deficits. Our debt is Pierre Trudeau's fault and people still worship him for selling us out to finance his legend.

Not to the Libs sorry. I know that this upsets you, but the fact that Ignatieff is campaigning in Toronto right now signals that his campaign is in full nosedive and in damage control mode. Ummm...your article says absolutely nothing about an NDP majority and doesn't even pose it as a possibility.

This is a good point. Leave it at that. Oh dear. Now you just look dumb. How do you propose the Germans would have crossed the English channel with the RAF and Royal Navy patrolling it? At least you sort of recovered with a decent analogy....

All of those countries have defence budgets similar to Canada's. Believe it or not we spend the 13th most on our military in the world. Japan's defense spending is a little over double ours. You have them pegged at buying 6 times more fighters than us. South Korea and Singapore combined have a defense budget around 30% higher than Canadas, yet you have them pegged at buying 2-3x more fighters than us. India isn't even considering the F-35 for their fighter replacement. Taiwan is nothing. Derek go over the actual NUMBERS. There REALLY isn't a market for another 2000 planes out there. Look at this chart and you'll see. Canada is the world's 13th largest military spender and we're buying 65 planes. You'd need 30 other countries like Canada to buy into the program and those countries don't exist. Even if you added up all the countries who are not buying the plane, all of them COMBINED don't have the budget for 2000 planes. It's the MONEY that's the problem. Check who has the money to spend and you'll see there's no possibility for 2000 planes in the next 20 years. No. Building parts for 3000 aircraft will not offset the cost to the government of buying 65 planes. If we were building ~10% of the plane, or the parts for it, you might have a case. The tax revenue might help offset it. As it stands we're going to be building a miniscule fraction of the jet.

FPTP is the best system of government for a federal democracy. Most of the country doesn't want to be governed by Toronto alone. You're voting for who your community/region sends to Parliament. The less energy you spend crying about it the more energy you can spend trying to affect the outcome.

What's ignorant about it? The unemployed and uneducated, according to Harris Decima, is one of the groups they identify as being most likely to agree to the telephone polling. The response rate is less than 15% and they rarely get an educated person to answer. I don't think there's any question who the unemployed and uneducated say they'd vote for. They're also one of the least likely groups to make the effort to go vote. It's too much work I guess.... Students are another group who poll high for NDP but then don't show up. That's fact. We have about 30 years of elections to support that. So again I'll ask, aside from my mild mockery, what's ignorant about what I'm saying? Did you, perhaps, take exception to my mild rhetoric and exaggeration? I apologize. I suppose I was getting annoyed with the rabid influx of delusional NDP supporters here lately, and their even more ridiculous anti-Harper rhetoric. Get over it and don't be upset when NDP numbers turn out way lower than 100 seats.

The other thing to consider is that the uneducated and non-tax paying NDP vote tends to not show up when the actual ballots are cast. It's a sexy thing to say that you're voting for Jack Layton but when you have to actually have a shower, get on the bus and make the trip over (possibly even wait in line), the support always seems to drop off. Curious.

It's a really good example of bad logic and poorly used analogy. For however many instances you can give us of bad military planning we can give you several good examples. The Maginot Line was a asinine defensive strategy implemented by an idiotic leadership who failed to learn their lesson after WWI. The German Blitzkrieg, however, was a brilliant strategy planned well in advance of the invasion and the money spent on the Panzer III was well worth it. To suggest that investment in obsolete battleships somehow proves that investment in fighter technology is bad is infantile logic. That's like saying investing in computers is bad because typewriters went obsolete. Derp derp.

Right up to Pearl Harbour the Americans were building aircraft carriers and using them as their fleet flagships soooo...you're totally wrong. You've been bleating the same tune for years now about this and about cruise missiles rendering fighters obsolete etc etc blah blah. Missile technology was supposed to render fighters useless about 40 years ago but strangely that never happened and has continued to NOT happen.

Like I said before, the markets really aren't there for another 2000 fighters. Canada, believe it or not, is the 13th largest defense spender in the world. You'd need another 30 countries with Canada's defense budget to get to 5000 fighters and those countries simply do not exist. 5000 fighters might be a possibility over the next 40 years where third world crapholes will buy updated versions of the outdated airframe (like the F-16E), but planes purchased 15-40 years from now will have NO impact on the price of the jet for Canadians in 2017. I'll repeat...the amount of work contracts we get in Canada will be negligible compared to the cost of the actual jets. It's REALLY negligible. Not just a little. The US isn't even releasing the software codes to Tier 1 partners, let alone Canada. +90% of the work is being done in the USA for the construction of the Canadian jets.

I question Harper's numbers because they're not based on reality. He and his staff are almost literally the only people in the WORLD who are expecting the jets to cost $77M/unit. The Americans, the people that are actually BUILDING the things, are saying they're going to cost more. There is not a single credible American source out there confirming Harper's fantasy price. The Pentagon is saying $115-150 million, the US Government Accoutability Office is confirming that, third party defence experts are echoing the sentiment, European and other foreign governments are expressing frustration over, yet somehow you and Harper have your heads in the sand disagreeing with all of them. It's hilarious and your numbers are based on ----yes----nothing. As for other nations, the expected totals to current partners: So we're about 1900 units short of your balogna estimate of 5000 units pushing the price down to $77M. To get to 5000 we need to have the equivalent of another US airforce buy into the project. No it couldn't. All of those countries have annual defence expenditures similar to or even lower than Canada's. Those purchases would all be in the 10-70 units range. There aren't 30+ countries wealthy enough out there to buy that many. Regardless, they'll have a negligible impact on prices in the near future because Lockheed can't bank on orders 15-20 years from now driving the costs down. Those aren't sure things or even likely things. The amount of work Canada aerospace will get out of the contract has next to nothing to do with what the price of the aircraft will be. Winslow Wheeler, a US security expert and member of the Centre for Defence Intelligence, has been quoted as saying Harper's numbers are pure fantasy. Given the WIDE consensus of US government and military sources, this seems the most likely. NOBODY is agreeing with Harper's numbers outside of the party. In the end I agree with the purchase and I'm not knocking that. I'm just immensely disappointed in Harper for shamelessly and obviously lying to us about the costs.

I guess you guys aren't watching any of the hockey games. Tonight in the Montreal vs Boston final I think I counted about 5 CPC commercials and a couple for the NDP and Liberals as well. I can almost going to guarantee you Harper is going to be blitzing ads for the next week.

Mandatory voting isn't very democratic in my opinion. You have the right to choose, but it should not be a legal obligation to do so. If people don't want to vote then that's their own damn fault.

A British simulation where the F-35's were outnumbered and flying in close formation while the Typhoons knew where they'd be coming from and thus knew to wide formation and get side radar signatures. It didn't seem like something realistic.

We're better off not upgrading at all than buying the Super Hornet. If we're only going to upgrade every 30-40 years it had better not be a marginal upgrade that will have been in service 20 years already.

You question the source of the estimate? The estimates are coming from the US Government Accountability Office and being echoed by nearly everyone in the business. A few key quotes from their statement: http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d11450t.pdf Affordability for the U.S. and partners is challenged by a near doubling in average unit prices since program start and higher estimated life-cycle costs. Program Has Still Not Fully Demonstrated a Stable Design and Mature Manufacturing Processes as It Enters Its Fifth Year of Production On page 16 it shows an average program cost of $156/unit and an actual procurement cost of $133M/plane. The F-35B is expected to cost approx $159M/plane. The US DoD is purchasing 2400 planes. It wouldn't be surprising given recent history for this number to go down. If the US is only ordering 2400, where would the other 2600 come from? There literally isn't a market for it anywhere. At this rate they're going to be hard-pressed to make it 3000 units and if we're going to use history as a guideline it would suggest that the price will go up and the orders will go down. Harper's figures are based on literally nothing. Even if you want to present the average cost of all 3 planes in the most favourable light possible, none of the math would support a $77M/unit price. Over 70% of the fighters the US will be buying will be the F-35A variant. The F-35C naval variant will make up the bulk of the rest of the planes the US will be purchasing. The F-35B has a small niche of service with the marines and some third rate powers in Europe. It's only expected to cost around 20% more than the F-35A and is expected to make up for probably less than 10% of the orders. It has a negligible impact on the averages. The only estimate pegging the plane at $77M/plane is coming from Harper and he's only saying that for optics. I agree with the purchase of the plane in principle but don't BS us on the numbers.