MONTREAL — Prime Minister Stephen Harper has offered a hint of the aggressive defence he intends to mount in the next election of his government’s multibillion-dollar purchase of fighter jets.
He made a pair of aerospace-themed stops Friday and began the day in Montreal’s West Island, where his Conservatives hope to make inroads in the next election.
Harper delivered a sharply partisan message that his opponents would cost the area jobs if they cancelled the program. He illustrated his point by surrounding himself with aerospace workers.
“Contracts like this are not a political game,” Harper said, speaking from a blue podium with government Action Plan slogans perched in front of him and behind him.
“It is about lives and, as you well know, it is about jobs.”
Harper accused the opposition of playing reckless politics with the F-35 contracts.
He compared the current resistance to the Liberals’ 1993 cancellation of a helicopter contract — which he said backfired spectacularly at the time.
The government says Canadian aerospace companies stand to benefit from the projected $12 billion in service contracts the program is expected to bring.
The jets are currently slated to cost Ottawa $9 billion, but that could jump to $16 billion when service costs are considered, and they are scheduled to be delivered by 2016.
The opposition says the government’s estimates are hopelessly optimistic. It describes the sole-sourced contract as an expensive mistake — particularly at a time of deficit cost-cutting.
Sen. Larry Smith, ex-CFL commissioner and current Conservative star candidate, did not attend the first event Friday, but the Tories hope he can deliver a neighbouring riding and give the party its first Montreal seat in decades.
With thousands of aerospace jobs in the region, Harper made it clear that those workers will play a central role in the Tory campaign.
“I do find it disappointing, I find it sad, that some in Parliament are backtracking on the F-35 and some are talking openly about cancelling the contract, should they get the chance,” Harper said at the Heroux-Devtek plant in Dorval.
“Cancelling a contract that way would be completely irresponsible. The opposition parties must stop playing partisan games with these crucial contracts.”
The plant boss, who has made a series of financial contributions to the Conservative party in recent years, backed up the prime minister’s message.
Heroux-Devtek president and CEO Gilles Labbe said the contract means hundreds of jobs at his company over the next two decades.
He described the situation as urgent and said Canada must immediately commit to the F-35 if it wants to reap the rewards.
“The window of opportunity is open now, but it will close when the large-scale production process begins,” Labbe said.
“It will then be too late for Canada to join the ranks of Lockheed Martins’s global supply chain.”