The recent unilateral decision by the federal government to spend up to $16 billion on the purchase and maintenance of new fighter jets is both wasteful and dangerous.
It’s wasteful because our military doesn’t need such extravagant and costly equipment. The arguments for such military aircraft became obsolete with the end of the Cold War over twenty years ago.
It’s significant that the Tories have not even bothered to convene the House of Commons defense committee. Could it be that they’re afraid of having a public debate on one of the costliest military purchases in Canadian history?
Is that why the announcement was made on a Friday afternoon, when fewer people are paying attention?
The question remains: why should Canadians be forced to pay so much for this aircraft when the government has not made a credible case to justify this extravagant expenditure?
Moreover, the members of our armed forces deserve a serious examination of the threats that they will be dealing with in the next decade or two. The government has not presented a compelling case that spending billions on these jets is the best way to equip our troops.
What’s more, they made an agreement to buy the jets from the giant American military contractor Lockheed Martin, without inviting a single competing bid. Had they done so, the Conservatives would probably have been able to save the taxpayers billions of dollars. That’s not a very smart strategy if they’re really concerned about reducing unnecessary government spending.
If this waste of public resources wasn’t bad enough, the Tories plan to spend about a half a trillion dollars on the military in the next two decades.
Worse, these foolish handouts to the U.S. and Canadian military-industrial complex will in fact make Canadians less safe in the years to come.
The biggest threats that we face are not from invading armies or fleets of enemy aircraft. Above all, we are in danger from the many ways that we are destroying our environment: global warming, loss of farmland, water shortages, loss of fisheries, and so on.
While the worst impacts are still to come, we are already paying a terrible price for ignoring environmental issues. For example, an estimated 700,000 Canadians will die over the next two decades because of illnesses caused by poor air quality, according to the Canadian Medical Association. That’s an average of 35,000 people dying needlessly every year.
The costs of dirty air, in terms of treating the illnesses in hospital and visits to doctors, as well as indirect expenses for time off work, added up to $10 billion in 2008. The costs will rise to $250 billion by the year 2031, according to the Canadian Medical Association.
The government has not only ignored such dangers, but has actually resisted international efforts to protect the natural world. The Prime Minister even ridiculed the Kyoto Agreement on greenhouse gasses as “a socialist plot.” Such a mindless statement shows how little Mr Harper knows, or cares, about our security.
The same short-sightedness that ignores our environmental crises also ignores all the other real threats to Canadians, such as inadequate funding for our medical system, a persistently high rate of child poverty, a lack of resources for education (as well as huge debt loads for post-secondary students), little support for family farms, an inadequate pension system – the list is far too long.
(The federal government does, however, provide oil companies with over a billion dollars a year in subsidies).
In fact, most Canadians have different priorities than the minority Conservative government. Most of us believe that Canada needs less spending on armaments for imaginary threats, and more money for housing, education, medical care, environmental protection, job training, day-care, and other vital social programs.
To take just one obvious example, the federal government could re-allocate funding from useless fighter jets to helping local governments create adequate public transportation. Not only would such projects create tens of thousands of well-paying jobs and support local communities, it would go a long way towards reducing traffic congestion, greenhouse gasses, and the air pollution which is killing us.
We could also put more resources into developing a military whose primary mission would truly be as peacekeepers.
Above all, what Canada truly needs is for its citizens to make it clear that any party that wants our votes must listen to us and act in the interest of the majority of Canadians.
It’s called democracy.
Peter G Prontzos teaches political science at Langara College in Vancouver and is a research associate at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives’ BC Office.