Friday Morning Links

Assorted content for your perusal...

- Steven Staples' report on the Cons' plan to spend $16 billion on F-35s has mostly been noted for its suggestion that Canada rely on drones for operations abroad. But the most important point seems to me to be Staples' observation as to what kind of capabilities actually matter in defending Canada's own terrain - and the folly of spending billions on add-ons that serve absolutely no purpose in that context:

(I)ntercepts do not in any case require an aircraft with the advanced technology of an F-35. Cutting-edge air-to-air combat and “stealth” capabilities, in
particular, are irrelevant. Bombers (and spy planes) do not dogfight, and they don’t operate search radars, for the simple reason that to do so would expose their own location and thus make them more susceptible to being shot down.

The continuing need for identification and control of civilian aircraft (and the desire to prevent theoretical “Bears over Winnipeg” options) argue against the elimination of all air defence capabilities, but these roles do not require a capability even more sophisticated than that of our existing CF-18 force...

- In retrospect, it's surprising that the issue of First Nations ownership of resources other than oil and gas has been left undetermined as long as it has. But presumably based on the sheer amount of money at stake in Saskatchewan's potash industry, it doesn't look like the issue will go unaddressed much longer.

- Brian Topp notes one particularly remarkable polling result after the Libs's concerted recent effort to sell their own leader and slam the NDP's:

Mr. Layton and Stephen Harper both continue to enjoy satisfaction and leadership numbers at around the 30 per cent mark, while Mr. Ignatieff has emerged from his latest honeymoon still tracking at only half that level in most polls. Since leadership perception can be a leading indicator of party support, we can say that as things stand today, Mr. Harper is efficiently supporting his party at its current level; Mr. Layton has the opportunity once again to help grow his party; and that Mr. Ignatieff would be a drag on Liberal support were an election to happen now.

- Finally, Don Martin rightly recognizes that the Cons may face the most difficult transition to an economic recovery of any federal party due to the reduction in their ability to pay for photo ops:

Thanks to international agreements on the need for massive stimulus spending, Harper had political cover to launch drunken-sailor spending, his government paving every pothole and cutting every ribbon, all of marked by thousands of look-at-us signs promoting their Economic Action Plan.

Yet as a minority mandate to deliver Conservative change, the last two years have been a major bust. Harper’s disappointed party puritans and made many enemies when straying from the economic file.

Senate reform has given way to senatorial stuffing, with Harper’s 32 appointments setting a single-year record in 2009. The bureaucracy has bulged, the balanced budget been delayed and there’s a hard-sell, single-source jet fighter contract on the horizon.

Academics, cities and provinces have been outraged by his census-altering shenanigans. His reckless spending on the G8-G20 summits was gobsmackingly profligate for the alleged party of prudence. Injured veterans are at war against a government which prided itself on being military-friendly. Environmentalists, as usual, feel shunned by climate change inaction.

Their government hasn’t shrunk, ministerial accountability has been selectively enforced, parliamentary decorum is still toxic and our status in the world, if this week’s United Nations smackdown means anything, is soiled.
...
The recession saved Stephen Harper from his own trivial pursuits. Perhaps he should be wary of the recovery.