'Sticker Shock' could give F-35 debate resonance: Pollsters By Carl Meyer Published September 8, 2010

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The Harper government has been able to withstand criticism of its new fighter jet purchase because Canadians are paying more attention to personal and family problems such as employment and health care, or consider the fracas to be politics-as-usual, say polling experts.

But the largest single military procurement in Canadian history, the sole-sourced $9-billion contract to US-based Lockheed Martin for 65 of its F-35 fighter jets and a possible $7-billion more in maintenance, will continue to give Canadians sticker shock, they say, and so will continue to be batted about by opposition parties.

Ever since the July 16 announcement, the government and its supporters have been attempting to justify the purchase. Over the summer, government officials have claimed the jets are needed as the best possible piece of equipment for Canadian pilots in the decades ahead, and to defend Canadian airspace from potential future invaders such as Russia or China.

To that effect, Prime Minister Stephen Harper's office directly linked a recent event involving Russian bombers with the need to replace Canada's fleet of CF-18s with the new F-35s. On Aug. 24, Canadian pilots identified Russian fighters flying close to Canadian airspace.

Despite the flights being what NORAD would later call a "routine" exercise, PMO communications director Dimitri Soudas released a note to the media on Aug. 25 writing that it was "thanks to the rapid response of the Canadian Forces" that "at no time did the Russian aircraft enter sovereign Canadian airspace."

"The CF-18 is an incredible aircraft that enables our Forces to meet Russian challenges in our North. That proud tradition will continue after the retirement of the CF-18 fleet as the new, highly capable and technologically advanced F-35 comes into service," his note said.

On top of fending off potential foreign invaders, Ottawa has also emphasized that Canada's participation in the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program, an international agreement, will position it to receive domestic industrial benefits in manufacturing, which it estimates at $12 billion.

But there are more explanations offered. On Aug. 31, Chief of the Air Staff Lt.-Gen. André Deschamps said the planned purchase is due to the F-35's stealth capability, so that Canadian pilots can sneak up on enemies. He told the Globe and Mail that stealth is a "deterrent" since knowledge of such capability would alter an enemy's strategy.

Yet another explanation given by the government is that, thanks to the Liberal government under Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, in 2002 Canada "committed" itself to the development of the JSF, as Mr. Harper put it during a Sept. 2 CF-18 maintenance announcement in Montreal.

As such, the government maintains that it would suffer serious consequences if it pulled out. It would also repeat the legacy of Mr. Chrétien's axed Sea King program in the mid-1990s.

Jobs and doctors

Throughout the seven weeks since the announcement, opposition critics and defence analysts have raised questions about the F-35's necessity. The din has escalated to a cacophony such that the House of Commons Defence committee has now said it will look at the purchase when the House resumes later this month.

Meanwhile, Liberal Party pollster Michael Marzolini made news last week during a Liberal Party caucus meeting on Aug. 31, when he said that the F-35s would become one of the main issues this fall. In an interview with Embassy, he defended his prediction, suggesting that Canadians aren't seeing value for their money.

"Canadians don't like expenditures of that sort that don't have all that much use," he said. "It's a large amount of money, and there's no value attached to the money. It's not how the deal was struck—whether 12 companies got to bid on it, or two, or it was single-sourced—it's that this is a transaction that does not make sense to many Canadians."

The NDP has also been on record since July questioning the government's purchase. Defence critic Jack Harris has questioned whether the planes fit the priorities of Canadians, saying in July that "there needs to be accountability and some justification for spending this amount of money."

The Bloc has demanded that the F-35 industrial production be centered in Quebec, which houses roughly half of Canadian aerospace production.

But other pollsters remain unconvinced it will become a central debating point this fall. Nik Nanos said that although he felt it would be an important political issue, it is unlikely to topple the government, as usually this takes "a combination of issues or a particular pattern of behaviour." He warned against confusing "politics-as-entertainment with what moves the numbers."

In terms of polling, he said the F-35 compared to the fight over the government's scrapping of the mandatory long-form census, the Helena Guergis affair, the Afghan detainee issue and the cost of the G8/G20 summits this summer. He said his research showed that these issues have only had "a minor impact on the political landscape."

"For Canadians, health and the economy are more likely to drive voter behaviour. They're not as exciting and entertaining as fighter jets and other issues, but they're bread and butter issues," he said.

This is a position increasingly taken by Liberal Party Leader Michael Ignatieff, who is now taking to tying the price tag to Canadians' worrying about the economy. During a media appearance in Baddeck, Nova Scotia, on Sept. 1, he said he believed Canadians' priorities are child care, retirement security, post-secondary education and health care.

"In a $54-billion deficit, to have your priorities being prisons and planes at a time when there's very widespread economic anxiety among Canadians, especially as they look over their shoulders at the United States, it seems to me people have got their priorities in the wrong place," he said.

Pollster Frank Graves said the government may have handed the Liberals a "political gift" with the fighter jet announcement, since the party now has a good chunk of money to point to when their new announcements or initiatives are questioned on financial grounds.

But he agreed with Mr. Nanos that if anything, Canadians would be focused on the price tag.

And all the pollsters agreed that the dynamics are too different from that other famous Canadian military procurement disaster, the Sea King, to be a repeat of history.

"The Sea King, and to a certain extent leaky submarines and so forth, became symbols of a military in decline, which was a hazard to the Forces, and people always felt committed to. But otherwise the background was very different," said Mr. Graves.

Philippe Lagassé, a procurement expert at Carleton University, said the government could be not letting the public in on a crucial aspect of its plan—the notion that if Canada signed on early, it would receive special treatment.

Logically, he said, a government would play hard to get on big procurement, hoping that a company would offer up something to sweeten the deal. Either the Conservatives have this deal-sweetener and aren't telling the public, or they put Canadians in a dangerous position by allowing Lockheed to decide the terms of the relationship while it goes about trying to convince other governments to jump on board.

"One really has to wonder why they went down that road. There must have been something to push them to sign this right away," he said.

cmeyer@embassymag.ca