Thursday Morning Links

This and that for your Thursday reading.

- Barbara Yaffe points out that the Council on Hemispheric Affairs seems to have a much better idea what Canada needs out of a fighter jet than the government that's trying to push ahead with a multi-billion dollar purchase:

The Council on Hemispheric Affairs’ paper — titled F-35, An Expensive Mistake for Canadian Forces — argues: “The F-35 is unsuitable for Canadian military operations and marks an unfortunate shift in Canadian foreign policy toward single-mindedly backing the U.S. military.”
...
But is it the right aircraft for Canada?

Council research associate Ivan Ho contends that, unless the Conservatives plan to shift to an interventionist foreign policy similar to the U.S., it is not.

Canada simply does not require stealth jets, generally deployed in the first stages of an air campaign to neutralize an enemy’s air-defence system.

“The F-35 was built to fulfil a niche role in the American military to conduct first strike capability.”

With a less sexy aircraft, Canada could still be fully capable of helping NATO with subsequent non-stealth bombing, the paper states.
...
The Council on Hemispheric Affairs argues that, with its limited defence budget, Canada would be better off choosing less militaristic missions, focusing on disaster and humanitarian relief, peacekeeping missions, search and rescue activity and patrols along Canada’s three coasts.

- In case anybody was under the misapprehension that the Cons' gutting of the long-form census couldn't get any worse: it has. And it'll continue to do so for a long time to come, as the Cons' shredded data from 2011 makes it more difficult to carry out accurate comparisons over time.

- But fortunately, the chances of getting back on track at the first opportunity are looking better if the PSAC indeed plans to target the Cons in 2015.

- Finally, Chantal Hebert's latest makes for an interesting take on the need for the media to build connections to the NDP which it never bothered to develop in the past. But I do think it's worth asking whether the media's previous neglect of the party was reasonable in the first place, particularly over the past few years when the electoral gap between other parties and the NDP has seldom been particularly large.