By Matt for the TIB Network:
I found an interesting article on SPACE.com that I thought I'd bait PK with...However, the average Canadian knows very little about missile defense. The media have done a terrible job of informing them of just exactly what Canada’s contribution would be to such a defense system. Most Canadians think that President Bush is asking Canada to allow the United States to deploy US controlled missiles on Canadian soil. Any loyal citizen of any free country would have a problem with relinquishing such sovereignty and it is certain that the USA would never allow such a thing to happen in the US, it is therefore hardly surprising that Canadians might have a problem with such a suggestion. However, this is not what the USA wants. What the Pentagon has asked for is that Canada allow the installation of more sophisticated tracking systems to be integrated into NORAD, specifically to accommodate the Missile defense system. Canada has already complied with many of these requests.So, if I am reading this right, there is an argument to be made that the decision to withdraw from missile defense isn't so much about missile defense or anti-war rhetoric, but rather thousands of people losing their jobs in 50's...and if the Prime Minister of Canada and the President of the United States were to explain to the people of Canada just what exactly it is missile defense is all about, then Canadians would be for it.
About 50% of Canadians either don’t care about missile defense or don’t mind if Canada continues to cooperate. Many of the 50% who are against it either don’t understand exactly what is being asked of them or are caught up in many Canadians’ traditional anti-war rhetoric. Some are simply against it because they’re not interested in paying the huge amounts of money necessary to try and make the system work; but many of them also have long memories.
In 1952 the United States pressured Canada to stop work on the world’s first safe jet airliner the Avro Jetliner. The general thrust of the argument was that there was no established market for a civilian jet aircraft and that Canada should be spending its time and manpower building F-100’s to assist in the Korean conflict. Canada complied and basically relinquished the civilian jet market to Boeing, who shipped their 707 two years later. The Jetliner was scrapped even though Howard Hughes had stated he would be placing an order for dozens of them for TWA. This decision still galls many Canadians, but this was only the beginning. Only a few years later Avro Canada built and flew the most sophisticated fighter aircraft on the planet, the CF-105 Arrow. The Arrow was far in advance of anything else in the skies and it included the first fly-by-wire system. With five aircraft already built and flying, the Arrow was a very real and tangible source of future jobs and revenue for Canada, orders were pouring in from Europe and around the world. However, in 1959 the Avro factory was ordered by the Canadian government to stop construction of the Arrow. That weekend tens of thousands of people lost their jobs. Prime Minister Diefenbaker and his advisers had been persuaded by the United States President and by the Pentagon that fighter aircraft were a thing of the past and that the future lay in missile defense.
Avro soon closed its doors altogether (reduced to making railroad cars) and the Canadian government promptly purchased a large stockpile of BOMARC missiles from the USA, ostensibly for shooting down Soviet bombers. This missile defense system was soon found to be completely inadequate, even before it was installed at considerable cost to Canadians. But it was too late, by that time Canada had already given up its advanced fighter program and so was forced to buy antiquated fighter planes from the US arsenal to replace the BOMARC. To add insult to injury the entire Arrow program was eradicated, all five planes were cut up and destroyed and all paperwork pertaining to the program was also ordered destroyed. The day after the cancellation, Bob Gilruth, head of the newly formed Space Task Group (which would later become NASA), arrived in Toronto to interview and hire away the cream of Avro’s engineering team who by this time had lost both of their prime projects.
...
The BOMARC was confounded by ICBMs and now forty years later the US government is proposing to use today’s BOMARC equivalent to plug the hole. Make no mistake, I don’t think there is a Canadian alive that doesn’t hope that America succeeds in plugging that hole. If the American President and the Canadian Prime Minister were to explain to the Canadian people just what it is they would be getting for their renewed trust, they might find that a lot more than 50% of Canadians would give them a green light to proceed.
Sounds just crazy enough to work. Too bad it will never happen...
One thing I still don't get, even after reading this article...what exactly was Canada's role in missile defense supposed to be?
