The Groundhog Still Sees a Shadow

As you can imagine with my interests, I've been keeping a close eye on Canada's attempts to buy a new jet fighter. Long story short, the program has been a total disgrace, with the single largest purchase of anything in Canada's history being handled with the same intelligence and transparency as a New Brunswick repaving contract being given to some local apparatchik's cousin. Anyway, here is the latest, courtesy of actual reporter David Pugliese of the Ottawa Citizen:

confusion reigns on the f-35 front in Ottawa

TL;DR: Last week it was floated by CBC and Reuters that the Cons were going ahead with the F-35 program. An announcement was supposed to happen today, but I think the two stories were trial balloons to see if it was safe for the Cons to just go ahead and do what they wanted to do. Apparently the Groundhog saw its shadow, because now they are keeping to the "saying absolutely nothing" strategy that they've stuck to ever since the auditor general's report. They are also preparing to "trot out a panel of independent [ed note: no neb do not just put quotation marks around the word independent] experts to counter allegations a review of the F-35 and its competitors was intended to provide political cover for purchasing the controversial stealth fighter." This is kinda weird, since the panel's finding haven't even been made public yet. Well, not so weird at all if you assume that the panel was set up explicitly to provide political cover for purchasing the controversial stealth fighter. This is somewhat suggested by the fact that these announcements are happening just before the summer recess in Parliament, and that the trial balloons were launched when Harper was in Normandy.

The four man panel is composed of three civil service mandarins, and one outspoken critic university professor of the purchasing process. A retired Canadian General was supposed to sit on this panel but he is now head of LockMart's Ottawa office. Two other things about the panel were revealed: that it is not allowed to actually recommend anything to the government, reportedly, only to "collect information" about what the manufactures are promising in the way of bribes industrial benefits to Canada, and maybe if there is time what the actual aircraft in question are like. The three alternates to the F-35 BTW are the Super Hornet, the Eurofighter, and the Rafale. Conspicuous in its absence is my personal choice, the F-15SE. Dassault, at any rate are apparently bringing their A-game to the competition, and I for one wish them bon chance, since I think the Rafale is a p. good choice and at any rate is gorgeous.