The Government of Canada has finally announced a contract to purchase the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. Is it late in coming? Yes. Should previous governments have not kicked the can further down the road? Yes. .But this is about national defence and the Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) and we need to applaud the fact that the feds are going to spend $19 billion for 88 state-of-the-art fighter jets. And to the people who think we should be spending this money on “social justice” projects, let me tell you that national defence is all about social, legal and political justice. .I have been following this story since former Prime Minister Jean Chretien originally agreed to sign-on to the F-35 procurement program. He dithered on actually purchasing the jet and the decision eventually moved to Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Harper was generally a pro-defence leader but he failed on the F-35, opting to ignore his responsibilities. As did Liberal leader Justin Trudeau, who ridiculed the possibility of buying the F-35 during the 2015 election campaign and said a Liberal government would never do so. .When he became prime minster, Trudeau kept criticizing the aircraft saying, “Canadians know full well that for 10 years, the Conservatives completely missed the boat when it came to delivering to Canadians and their armed forces the equipment they needed,” Trudeau said in June 2016. “They clung to an aircraft [the F-35] that does not work and is far from working.” .Ironically, it was Justin Trudeau’s anti-military father, Pierre Trudeau, who decided to replace the CF-101 Voodoo — held together with gun tape by the end of their operational lifetime — with the CF-18 in 1982. It was just too embarrassing to keep insisting the Royal Canadian Air Force do their best with outmoded equipment. .What about the critics today? It is truly time to shut up because you don’t know what you’re talking about. The F-35 is the best fighter available on the market and is flown by the Royal Air Force, the Royal Australian Air Force, the United States Air Force, the United States Navy and Marines. It routinely flies in the cold weather of Norway and isn’t crashing out of the skies as its naysayers insisted it would. .The far-left, military-hating critics of the F-35 can be dismissed as completely detached from reality. .Vancouver resident Sarah Rohleder wants to send a petition to the House of Commons to do an analysis on the social justice implications about buying F-35 fighter jets. “The procurement of these fighter jets is antithetical to feminist foreign policy and diverts public funds away from necessary social programs like healthcare, education and housing,” said Rohleder in her petition. “The F-35s are fossil fuel-powered, will emit greenhouse gases and will exacerbate the climate crisis.” .Wow. Can you believe that anybody would even offer such a ridiculous argument for flying antiquated fighter jets? Let me tell you what happens to “social justice” when your country can’t defend itself. It gets invaded by militaristic governments and any sort of justice is a distant memory. That’s what happened to Poland in 1939 and then the Second World War began. .Activist Tamara Lorincz has noted that Canada could be spending the $19 billion on 760 Indigenous wellness centres. How nice. I think indigenous Canadians will better appreciate being defended by the F-35. . Defence Minister Anita Anand.Defence Minister Anita Anand. .At Monday’s news conference, Defence Minister Anita Anand said all the right words. They were so right, they seemed to be ripped from the pages of the air force public affairs policy points that I used to write. She said the F-35 acquisition was the “largest investment in the Royal Canadian Air Force in 30 years.” She suggested the new fighter was important in order that “the air force has the equipment needed to protect Canadians,” and that the F-35 is crucial for Canada to maintain “interoperability with our allies.” .Anand praised the RCAF pilots who “risk [their] lives for this country” and that they need “the top of the line equipment … to keep Canada safe.".Liberals haven’t talked this way since Louis St-Laurent was prime minister and the defence budget was rarely debated and never politicized. Obviously, the Liberals are expecting some political dividends to stream from this decision but the point for Canadians is that giving the military the tools it needs to the job should never be a polarizing political policy. Like defence spending in the U.K. and Australia, supporting the military should be non-partisan position. .Our men and women in unform deserve that much.
