Purchase of fighter jets “an idea that’s out of control”: Ignatieff
Posted Apr 10, 2011 05:42:00 AM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff says spending billions on F-35 fighter jets is an idea that’s out of control, but Prime Minister Harper won’t admit it.
Ignatieff told an audience in Toronto last night that the jets would be the biggest military purchase in Canadian history — yet we still don’t know the true cost.
He says most people wouldn’t go out and buy a car at the first dealership they find, yet Harper went shopping and came back with a 50-seat bus.
Ignatieff says the planes are not good value for money.
Earlier in the day, Ignatieff was trying to turn some recent Conservative attack ads into an asset.
The ads accuse the Liberal leader of just visiting.
But, Ignatieff pointed out that respected former Liberal prime minister and Nobel Prize winner Lester B. Pearson was an academic and he was out of the country for about two decades.
It didn’t take long for the crowd to catch on, to much laughter and applause.
Ignatieff pointed out that Pearson got much more work done in one year with a minority government than Stephen Harper did in five.
He was speaking at a high school named after Pearson.
