CommanderSock CommanderSock:
To our military buffs here...
Would it not actually make sense if Canada used domestic built, and engineered military equipment. Not because it's cheaper (it could be, but not guaranteed), but due to security purposes.
The USA routinely strips down military equipment when sold overseas...the Japanese as a result have decided to manufacture their own stealth fighters instead of relying on the never arriving F-22. (It will be built by Mitsubishi).
Canada's level of expertise with this level of tech excellent, we certainly have the technology. IMO it's time we began to heavily subsidize a domestic military industry of some kind instead of relying on the US firms. If the Swiss, Swedes and South Africans can manufacture stealth destroyers and jet fighters, so can we.
It's been bandied about on CKA for years, but as our experience with the Avro Arrow taught us, developing a front line indigenous fighter plane is monumentally expensive.
We could develop our own fighter plane if we were willing to spend somewhere in the area of $25 billion or so (depending on how many fighters we ultimately built), but the desire and commitment from the DND and our government has never materialized. In these days of such political partisanship, whichever party that decided to fund such development would need to have a mandate for at least a decade (if not more), as the opposing party would almost surely cancel the project once it was elected - either out of spite or simply labelling it a 'Cadillac' project that Canada can't afford.
We will likely build our own destroyers and supply ships, but they cost far less to develop than state-of-the-art fighter planes do.
Finally, the fighters that many other small nations develop (like Sweden, Taiwan, South Africa, etc) are usually not up to par with front line planes developed by US or even USSR. And in many of those situations, the nation developing the fighter has its own reasons for doing so - like an arms embargo (South Africa) or outright refusal from other nations to sell them arms (Taiwan).
Japan develops its own planes, but pays up to 50% more than they would if they just bought the from the US/Europe. The big reason they are willing to pay extra is because they prefer to see 100% of the industrial offsets (and jobs and technology) developed in Japan, supporting Japanese industry, and developing new technologies they might otherwise not. The Japanese government plays a far larger role in the economy than the Canadian government does.
Still, I think it would have been great if a part of the stimulus package (Gods know how many billions) had gone to buying some new LAVs (built in London & Edmonton BTW), new Buffalo SAR planes (built in Victoria and Calgary), and new JSS (could be built in a couple shipyards in eastern Canada), and getting hulls laid for new DDHs (eastern Canada again), instead of seeing $75 billion go to the big 5 banks and another $4 billion or so to GM & Chrysler. Even $5 or $10 billion of the stimulus would have gone a long way.
IMHO, the $56 billion deficit would be easier to swallow if DND had gotten a cut of it.
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