I remember when we were only talking a paltry 9 billion dollars on new fighter jets (powered by the tears of Canadian children with no access to nationalized day-care).  I though wow, this is a real super hyped up plus sell hunk of bullshite being foisted on Canadians.  Apparently, Harper and his braintrust of strategists have managed to come up with the cluster-bomb grade version of stupidity things to endorse.  Brian Stewart from the CBC illustrates the madness of the CPC:

“The who-knew-what about the real costs of the F-35 fighter jet Canada wants to purchase is worrisome enough. But at the heart of the fiasco is a far more serious concern about what public honesty means to this government.

It’s a sad state that few Canadians appear surprised by the auditor general’s findings that Parliament was kept in the dark over the real costs of this program and what looks to be a $10-billion overrun.

Many seem to assume that misleading and denying whenever it suits is a government’s normal default position. After all, this government seems to have done it for years on Afghanistan and with its other problems in national defence.

In my own attempts to unravel the F-35’s real costs I never once met a single soul outside government and knowledgeable about defence purchases who believed the prime minister’s promise that the planes could be delivered for a bargain-rate $75 million each.

I never met anyone inside the Canadian military who thought so either.”

It’s like watching a child caught in a obvious lie slowly admit guilt –

“But the amount of money that is in the pot is still substantial. The 19 F-35As that the U.S. will acquire in fiscal year 2013 will cost $197 million each. In 2001, the projected cost for these jets was $69 million.

The cost per plane is expected to drop later in the production cycle, assuming the order numbers do not.

Over the course of the U.S. program, the “average” cost of acquiring each F-35 should be about $162 million each, according to Pentagon figures.

The Canadian government has estimated its 65 F-35s will cost just $75 million each to acquire. But the parliamentary budget officer pegs that number at $148 million.”

Err…  Almost double of what was told to the Canadian people?  Hmm.  The ‘open and transparent’ Harper government  once again proves its true colours.  Oversights of this magnitude are like slapping the Canadian people in the face with a bag full of rotten fish, for about 2 years now and counting.

We need to wake up and demand a responsible government because it seems as of late a lot of crappy things are being done in my name without my knowledge, and I for one, do not like it one bit.