Our debate over buying 65 F-35 fighter jets has stalled at hardware, taking a quintessentially Canadian turn in the worst sense: narcissistic, navel-gazing, insecure and bureaucratic. The national debate, both on and off the Hill, has obsessed over technical minutiae. Is the F-35 too slow? Is stealth necessary? Is it expensive or unreliable technology? Should the process have been open to competitive tender?
These are bureaucratic debates for a nation of soulless penny-pinchers, not a deep moral vision for Canada’s role in the world. Debates over tools don’t come before you set the project. Are we building a car or a barn? Then we’ll know whether we need hammers.
If you want to send a message to our country's leaders, by all means do it in Canada's national newspaper, on the off chance that somebody in Ottawa will be in the mood to hear some sensible advice during an election campaign.
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