The Jet Set

Last week in Washington, as the Senate discussed the F35, the red flags were everywhere. Robert Haddick, in Foreign Policy, reported that:

The troubled and long-delayed F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program came under renewed scrutiny this week. The Air Force, Navy, Marine Corps, and many foreign partners plan to buy thousands of the fighter-attack jets over the next two decades to replace a variety of aging aircraft, but the development schedule of the stealthy fighter has slipped five years to 2018 and the projected cost to the Pentagon for 2,457 aircraft has ballooned to $385 billion, making it by far the most expensive weapons program in history.

Defence Minister Peter Mackay has assured Canadians that there is no cause for concern. Canada, he says, has ordered the stripped down version of the airplane -- the equivalent of the family sedan, not the Dodge Viper. And, besides, there are more immediate concerns to be dealt with -- like the per vote subsidy, which sucks a whopping $27 million from the nation's purse.

And now that Tony Clement holds the strings to the nation's purse, we should all be able to sleep at night -- knowing that the man who was so parsimonious with government funds in his own riding will now ride shotgun on those who wish to waste the people's hard earned money.

We live in the best of all possible worlds. We have entrusted the nation to Canada's new Jet Set.