Not being a regular reader of the right-wing National Post, we are not as familiar with commentator John Ivison. He appears to be a believer in conspiracy theories. In his commentary of June 22, he wrote of Linking pipelines to planes and CO2. According to Mr. Ivison, it all appears to be a dastardly Liberal conspiracy.
Ivison explains that the conspiracy starts with the campaign promise of Justin Trudeau to dump the Lockheed F-35 and hold an open competition to replace Canada’s aging F-18 fighters. This has changed as it now involves dumping the open competition and sole-sourcing Boeing Super Hornets as an interim replacement for the unlikely F-35. The next step in these gyrations is to give Bombardier the billion dollars it currently needs in exchange for the Quebec government pulling back on its objections to the Energy East pipeline through that province.
British Columbia is also supposed to get a piece of this action in that the feds would contribute another billion to the new hydro project in that province to carry the electricity to Alberta to lessen that province’s reliance on coal for electricity. The quid pro quo here would be the acceptance of the twinning of the Kinder Morgan pipeline for bitumen to cross the Rockies.
What makes the theory questionable is that Lockheed is supposed to have threatened 2400 Canadian jobs by saying that they would pull back on the high-tech offsets due to Canada in their deal. Since many of these jobs are committed under different arrangements with defence spending in the two countries, Boeing could more than make up any differential.
And while the lack of competition is bad, at least the two-engine Super Hornet is much better designed for Canada’s defence needs. The F-35 is best designed if we always go to war along side our American allies.
What does not make sense is that it is simply too Machiavellian to consider a confidential deal between the Ottawa Liberals and the Quebec City Liberals. These are not the same type of Liberals and nobody on either side wants secrets between them. Secrets are something to be used not kept.
There might be some trust between the Ottawa Liberals and the Victoria, B.C. Liberals but tying the solution to Premier Notley’s green-house gas emissions in Alberta is too much of a stretch.
While Mr. Ivison weaves a good story, it is not a sure thing that he is hitting on all cylinders on this one. Mind you, the story seemed par for the course in the National Post.
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Copyright 2016 © Peter Lowry
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