So what did I miss?
By Aaron Wherry - Friday, March 16, 2012 - 0 Comments
This was an interesting exchange.
Bob Rae. Mr. Speaker, on the subject of electoral fraud, the Prime Minister, on April 8, 2011, in the middle of the election campaign, talked about the F-35 contract. He said, “the contract we’ve signed shelters us from any increase in those kinds of costs. We’re very confident of our cost estimates”. His ministers are telling us now that there is no contract, that there is no assurance with respect to cost and, in fact, that signing a contract is a matter of if and when. Was the Prime Minister telling the truth when he spoke to the people of Canada on April 8, 2011, about a so-called contract, yes or no?
Stephen Harper. Mr. Speaker, this is a matter of public record. At the time, I was referring to a memorandum of understanding. It has not been a secret that the government has not signed a contract. The fact is our country does not pay any increase on the development cost. That is the arrangement. It is also a fact that we have provisioned in our budget funds for future aircraft and we are prepared to live within that budget.
This has to do with the “realistic” and “forthright” musings of Julian Fantino.
Murray Brewster astutely noted two weeks ago that the government’s talking points changed. More now from Campbell Clark and Colin Horgan.
And now, turning back to December 13, 2010, a moment in Commons history. Continue…
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Afghanistan book reviews: The Savage War and The Long Way Back
By Michael Petrou - Monday, January 23, 2012 at 10:55 AM - 0 Comments
Readers hoping to better understand Afghanistan and the outside world’s involvement in the country since 9/11 have been well served by Canadian authors of late.
Terry Glavin’s Come from the Shadows: the Long and Lonely Struggle for Peace in Afghanistan has been reviewed in this space already. Next up are The Savage War: the Untold Battles of Afghanistan, by Canadian Press defence correspondent Murray Brewster, and The Long Way Back: Afghanistan’s Quest for Peace, by former Canadian and UN diplomat (and current Conservative MP) Chris Alexander. Continue…
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‘I didn’t know all of the specifics’
By Aaron Wherry - Monday, October 3, 2011 at 9:43 AM - 3 Comments
However much Peter MacKay supports the troops, he apparently wasn’t much involved in one of the Harper government’s most significant moves in regards to the war in Afghanistan.
“The Savage War,” by Canadian Press defence writer and Afghanistan correspondent Murray Brewster, paints a portrait of a PMO keen to preserve its tenuous grip on minority power and desperate to control the message amid dwindling public support for the war.
MacKay, who took over Defence from Gordon O’Connor in August 2007, was blindsided by the Harper government’s decision later that year to set up a blue-ribbon panel to review the mission headed by former Liberal cabinet minister John Manley, Brewster writes. ”It wasn’t discussed with the broader cabinet, no,” the minister says in the interview. “I didn’t know all of the specifics.”
