OUR N E W   W E B   S I T E   "WORLD AIR FORCE NEWS"
 
  
 
 

WORLD AIR WAR HISTORY


 
  HOME > AMERICAN AIR FORCE NEWS >

Invest $25 billion in fighting real threat to Canadian society

Invest $25 billion in fighting real threat to Canadian society

As the auditor general, Department of National Defence and the parliamentary budget officer slug out the actual cost of the F-35 fighter, no party has bothered to really explain why this procurement is even necessary.

As a young Canadian attempting to obtain decent employment in order to pay off a student loan, I could actually put that excessively expensive education to some use here. We shouldn’t let cynicism or indifference write a blank cheque, yet again, to the folks in Ottawa: We face serious threats that an overpriced weapon is useless against.

Many Canadians like myself are overburdened with enormous student loans. These loans prevent us from settling down, acquiring a home and starting a family. Suffice it to say, the debts also severely limit our employment and career choices, with this being a brutal reality even prior to 2008.

Many older Canadians might point out, in a sad parody of that Billy Joel song We Didn’t Start the Fire, that this is the reality of “growing up.” Unfortunately for virtually all of these people, the reality of growing old is going to necessitate a large tax base and labour pool to look after these aging people. We currently have neither of these requirements developing, and it is frightening to think what the retirement age will be for me in 20 years.

Spending $25 billion in an effort to offer at least some relief to students in debt would permit the vast majority of us to do something that is the basic right of every Canadian: live our lives.

Comparatively, spending $25 billion on stealth fighters is wasteful and unnecessary. Can we envision a situation that requires our air force to penetrate a sophisticated air-defence network and conduct bombing missions? Is our sovereignty seriously threatened by another nation’s air force? Kosovo, Afghanistan and Libya represent rather exceptional cases that virtually every member of NATO has no wish to repeat, Syria being a good if unfortunate example. Canada is also hardly under threat from an aging and lethargic Russian military, and it borders on the insane to imagine partaking in bombing missions over China with the United States Air Force.

However, I digress, as they say.

We need $25 billion spent on combating the very real threat of students overburdened by loans, marginalized, and unable to truly live their lives for the benefit of the country as a whole. That is the very real existential threat facing Canadian society and it doesn’t require an over-expensive toy to solve it.


Source: By THOMAS BRUCE - April 19, 2012 (thechronicleherald.ca)

Photo: Canadian Air Force Lockheed Martin F-35 Lightning II stealth multi-role fighters (Photo by Lockheed Martin)

(19.04.2012)


 
  CONTINENTAL NEWS:

American Air Force News
African Air Force News
Asian Air Force News
European Air Force News
Middle Eastern AF News
Ocean Air Force News


• Announcing the Royal Canadian Air Force 2024 Logo

(6.07.2021)
With the RCAF Centennial anniversary only a thousand days away, Lieutenant-General Al Meinzinger, Commander of the Royal Canadian Air Force and Chief Warrant Officer John Hall, the...>>

• Guyana gets Short SC.7 Skyvan 3s

(11.09.2019)
A pair of second-hand Short SC.7 Skyvan 3 Variant 100s has been delivered to the Guyana Defence Force (GDF) Air Corps after being acquired from an operator in the UK....>>

• Panama receives six UH-1H Huey II helicopters

(11.09.2019)
Six Bell UH-1H(S) Iroquois (UH-1H Huey II) helicopters have been delivered to Panama by the US government as part of the Merida Initiative – a security co-operation agreement to co...>>

• KC-390, E195-E2 & HSTS - When Embraer and Safran’s technologies take off together!

(4.09.2019)
Embraer recently delivered the first KC-390 military transport to the Brazilian air force, and the first E195-E2 regional jet to Brazilian carrier Azul. These brand-new civil and m...>>

• Costa Rican Four UH-1H Helicopters Donated by the U.S. Government Are Now Operational

(10.08.2019)
Four helicopters arrived in Costa Rica nearly a month ago as part of a two-year program between Costa Rica and the U.S. Embassy. ...>>

• Russian Helicopters participate in SITDEF19

(20.05.2019)
Russian Helicopters holding (part of Rostec State Coropration) will participate in the Seventh International Exhibition of Technology for Defense and Prevention of Natural Disaster...>>

• US Navy hospital ship is sending to Venezuela

(8.05.2019)
As tensions with Venezuela mount, the United States is planning to announce on Tuesday the deployment of a military hospital ship to the region, U.S. officials say, in the latest s...>>

 



       info@xairforces.net Webmaster: REFLX DESIGN - © 2011 xairforces / Aviation Society,