ReeferMadness

Why would you assume that everything that is bad should be illegal? Criminal law is a blunt instrument and should be used only as a last resort. There's so much nonsense and bigotry in that statement - I'm not going to bother responding to it. Actually, it was General Rick Hillier who recommended that we take 50,000 by Christmas and felt it would be easy to do so without compromising security. Get your facts straight. Assimilation is not a Canadian value - look south. We have multi-culturalism up here.

I think the Conservative success in the last two elections with attack ads and other anti-democratic tactics has resulted in the other two main parties adopting the strategy of sticking strictly to talking points. That's why the debates have become such impoverished events where people simply spout talking points instead of answering the questions. I heard Andrew Coyne contrast these debates with the 1979 debate between Trudeau, Broadbent and Clark. I encourage people to go to youtube and hear people actually debate their own policies instead spin the others. To me the low point of the Globe Debate was where Harper announced that the other parties would just open the floodgates to hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees. It's really difficult to characterize his statement as anything other than a blatant falsehood.

Maybe now isn't the best time to be making this decision. It sounds like the Americans have twisted arms to get everyone to commit to one choice, eliminating the competition. Is that why the F-35 is so expensive? Any way to extend the lives of the current birds while the smoke clears?

Agreed. It looks like we have parity.

I agree that we're not going to win an all-out war with Russia or China. That's not the point. The point is we can raise the stakes sufficiently that they don't just set up camp on Baffin Island and thumb their noses at us. Also, we contribute to the air defence of North America. I think you are falling into the trap of caricaturing Muslims. They have religious fanatics, to be sure. We also have Christian fundamentalists who are also fanatics. So, let's not go overboard. I agree with Gwynne Dyer who believes that when we attack Muslim countries, we help recruit more fanatics. If you think that spending billions fighting wars and killing people in 3rd world countries makes us safer, I think the onus should be on you to present some evidence that it does. It seems like there is a huge tendency to send soldiers into every situation. And I think history shows that external interference has caused a lot of the problems to start with. I think that the "war on terror" has been an abysmal failure if the aim was to make the world safer. I find it odd that the same people who would moan about the burden to taxpayers when it comes to spending millions on foreign aid are suddenly all in when it comes to spending billions on conducting wars in other countries.

This is bringing me back to the intent of my original question - what is the F35 intended to do? I think there are two roles. The first is to provide a deterrent to Russians/Chinese/whoever else for our own airspace. Based on what you've just said, It sounds like there might be less expensive alternatives to the F-35 that would do that. The second is to fight in wars like Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria. I'm not convinced it makes us safer to fight in these wars and I'm not sure why we need stealth fighters to do it. What am I missing?

The number of combat kills for the F-35 is zero. Want me to count again?

Maybe you think you know but I don't believe you do. There is all kinds of guessing about the capabilities of the Russians and the Chinese. Even if there are people in the know, I don't trust any information they release. They will overstate the other guys capabilities to get the population to support higher military spending or understate them to avoid panic.

Yeah. I have to say that I think the main factor to consider is that we have a credible deterrent so that we don't wind up fighting the Russians. They have nuclear arms and any actual war with them is unlikely to end well for anyone concerned. Same goes for the Chinese. My main concern with buying these planes is that they wind up fighting all kinds of wars where the argument that they are making me safer is really iffy. And the argument that they are actually making me less safe is more convincing. That's why I would be much more comfortable with a plane that is designed for air defence and not so much for attacking another country.

You don't know that.

The rationale for excluding the Greens is that they don't have enough seats. They don't have more seats because of our undemocratic voting system. So the fundamental issue in play is whether society is doing enough to accommodate a discriminated minority. The legal challenge that the charity is acting in a partisan manner is an interesting ploy - but not really the main issue. A meaningless platitude is dismissing the Greens as a "fringe party". Either you believe in democracy or you don't. If you do, then you have a duty to make meaningful accommodation for minority viewpoints. We have 3 parties crowding the centre, one from the right and 2 from the left. All three of them are essentially running on the same platform - endless economic growth while supporting the "middle class" (though nobody really knows wtf that even is). Democracy should encourage alternate viewpoints, not stifle them. The Globe debate was a joke. The only really intelligent commentary came from May's tweets.

Well. That remains to be seen. And when it's seen, it will be too late to do anything about it.

If you're fighting less capable enemies, I agree you probably wouldn't need to dog fight. However, if you're fighting another stealth plane (e.g. the Russians), wouldn't the stealth technologies cancel each other out and put you back into a dog fight? I'm not complaining - I'm asking questions. And if you're of the mindset that our focus should be air defence over Canada rather than bombing Syria, then it seems like dog fighting should be a higher priority.

It's not trolling at all. The history of proportional representation is one of mainstream parties putting up roadblocks to prevent smaller parties like the Greens from being able to properly represent their constituents. The major parties, their supporters and institutional players (like the MSM) have behaved towards smaller parties in much the same ways as they've behaved to other types of minorities. The concerns are mocked and minimalized while the need for discrimination is rationalized. Majorities have a duty to accommodate minorities and the number of successful examples of PR systems shows that it is perfectly reasonable to do so. The NDP is a case in point. Where PR is favorable (federally and provincially in Ontario), the NDP is a big proponent of PR. Where FPTP works in the NDP's favor, they might claim to be supportive but somehow it never gets done.

That's your view. It's certainly not the first time in history that someone has rationalized systematic discrimination of a minority based solely on numbers. It's just a little disappointing coming from you.

The F-18's were bought as multi-role aircraft. The F-16 was designed as an air superiority aircraft and evolved into a multi-role aircraft. However, neither had the mind-boggling costs of the F-35. Which is worrisome because 138 CF-18's were built. If we buy 65 F-35's and have a similar attrition rate, we're going to be operating with no airforce at some point.

"Fringe party". "less than 4%". You're dancing around the fact that well over a half million people voted Green in 2011 and that figure will be almost certainly much higher this time around. There is no reason to push Green off the stage.

If you think that Canadians don't want to pay to defend Canada, provide some evidence that's true. I think Canadians are happy to pay for Canada's defence - they just don't see how bombing Iraq and Syria necessarily does that.

OK. I know I read it somewhere but can't remember where. I'm not sure that Canadians generally would be in favour of spending a lot more money to allow future governments to "set international policy". The examples you've provided (Libya, Afghanistan) and Iraq have all turned into disasters. Now Syria is a huge mess. Maybe we shouldn't be using bombing as a tool of international policy. There are stories that the F35's are terrible in a dogfight (slow, don't turn or climb well). I understand that the point is to defeat the enemy without getting to the dogfight stage but are we sure that dogfighting is no longer required?

Doesn't Canada have much more territory to cover than either Norway or the US? I'm thinking of the chance that the fighter would be over the Arctic Ocean when it lost an engine and the distance/time that would be involved in a rescue. Maybe Denmark might be a better comparison because it defends Greenland, although I don't know how often it would do air patrols there. Also, is the comparison to the F16 fair? My understanding of the F16 was that it was designed to be a fairly simple aircraft that could be purchased in relatively high numbers because it was relatively low cost. That's not my impression of the F35. Is the F16 safer than the F15 because it's a simpler design? My understanding was that the F35 was intended to be a multi-role aircraft and that's why it's so expensive. It seemed like Trudeau was arguing we should focus on air defence and not something designed to penetrate other countries' defences. Is there a less expensive alternative that would be better? Fair enough. But given the bad press that the aircraft has had and what's at stake, isn't there an incentive for them to provide favorable reports? One last question. We had well over 100 F18's but the proposal is to buy only 65 F35's. Did we have too many F18's or is this just a matter of us only buying 65 because they think that the cost of the 100+ F35's wouldn't be politically acceptable?

I have a bunch of questions about the F35 and this latest controversy. Did Trudeau actually rule out the F35 or did he just say he would cancel the current program and then go out to bid (and possibly still get the F35)? One of the big selling points for the F18 was that it had 2 engines and sufficient range to patrol/intercept in the arctic. Why is a single engine/short range fighter now acceptable? It seems like the big feature for the F35 is the stealth feature. Is stealth critical for home air defence? Or is this really more for invading someone else's airspace? Has the F35 actually proven itself yet? There were still a lot of problems last time I read anything on it.

Here we go again... That's speculative. It assumes that there weren't any people who would have voted Green but decided not to for strategic reasons. Or because they decided the Greens had no chance in their ridings. It also assumes a straight party list system. The calculations are more complicated under MMP (which has many variants) and STV. Also, "she" will get either 0 or 1 seat. The party can have many seats. The difference may seem academic for other parties but May and the Greens are on record saying they won't whip votes.

She has lots of support in this country and if the number of Green seats was proportional to the level of support (even in the last election when it dipped), people wouldn't be able to keep her out of the debates.

I disagree. They may not have power but they do have influence. "Fringe party" is simply an epithet that bigger parties use when they'd like the little ones to go away. For the Green Party, much of the criticism comes from the NDP which has moved to the middle and left gaps in terms of social and environmental policies. You don't think there is any linkage between the Greens under-representation in the HoC and them being missing from the debates? I think there is.