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 warning that the area might lose jobs if his opponents take power and cancel the program. He punctuated 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."
Later in the day, Harper was once again surrounded by applauding aerospace workers as he announced a $640-million contract in Mirabel, Que., for Bell Helicopter (NYSE: TXT) to service the Canadian Forces’ Griffon fleet.
Those aerospace stops came on a day when potential election battle lines sharpened.
Chances of a budget deal with the Bloc Quebecois appeared slim as the prime minister dropped a strong hint his government could not meet its condition for support in the upcoming confidence vote.
Harper downplayed the chances of an imminent $2.2-billion tax harmonization deal with Quebec, saying the province had still not agreed to truly blend its sales tax with the GST.
A budget deal with the NDP appeared likelier. The New Democrats have set, as conditions for supporting the budget, a modest expansion of the Canada Pension Plan and an increase in the Guaranteed Income Supplement for low-income seniors.
The Liberals, meanwhile, showed no sign of backing down from an election fight over fighter planes.
They accused the prime minister of misrepresenting the perceived benefits of the fighter-jet program and called it "pure fantasy" to be predicting $12 billion in economic spinoffs.
The estimate is based on Lockheed Martin selling 5,000 aircraft. But as the plane’s development hits delays and governments everywhere grow concerned about their deficits, Liberal critic Marc Garneau says 3,000 sales is a more realistic estimate.
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.
But Harper says the opposition is simply playing reckless politics with the F-35 contract.
He compares the current resistance to the Liberals’ infamous 1993 cancellation of a helicopter deal – which he said backfired spectacularly at the time.
Garneau took issue with that comparison, too.
The Liberal critic noted that at the time Harper worked for Preston Manning, and their Reform party also advocated cancelling the helicopter contract.
"I’m surprised he didn’t mention that," Garneau said.
Sen. Larry Smith, ex-CFL commissioner and current Conservative star candidate, did not attend Friday morning’s event, 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."
Labbe donated $3,700 to five Conservative party riding associations between 2007 and 2009, and also donated $500 to a Liberal party association on Montreal’s south shore, according to Elections Canada.
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