Statement

From the Prime Minister's Web Site (http://www.pm.gc.ca/)

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Statement by the Prime Minister of Canada on his visit to Bristol Aerospace Ltd.

October 7, 2010
Winnipeg, Manitoba

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Prime Minister Stephen Harper today made the following remarks during a visit to Bristol Aerospace Ltd., in Winnipeg:

"Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen.

"I want to not just thank Tony for that introduction. I also want to thank Tony as one of the key ministers. As Minister of Industry, he is one of the key ministers who has been spearheading on our government's side this entire Joint Strike Fighter effort, so thank you, Tony, for the work that you've been doing on behalf of everyone here. I also want to extend my greetings to my friends and parliamentary colleagues, Vic Toews, to Steven Fletcher, to James Bezan, to our provincial colleagues who are present as well, to all of our friends who are here representing Magellan, Bristol, Lockheed-Martin, BAE Systems. Don, thank you for kicking us off, and finally, I'd like to especially express my appreciation to you, Murray, for hosting this gathering here today.

"As you all know, I've just spent a little time with some of your colleagues and employees, Murray, and I must tell you, as a Canadian, it makes me proud to see what you can make here, satellites, rockets. And, what we're here to talk about today, aircraft components. High quality, precisely engineered products that work, and work with complete reliability, in the most demanding of environments.

"It takes an exceptional piece of machinery to work flawlessly, high in the atmosphere, flying faster than sound, where the air is thin and where, they tell me, the temperatures are colder than Portage and Main in January.

"And, it takes people with exceptional skills and exceptional commitment to make these things. You are those exceptional people. So give yourselves a big round of applause. You are, in fact, one of Canada's great strategic assets. And for you, ladies and gentlemen, we have a fitting job, a job of national importance – helping to provide our government with the tools it needs to defend our sovereignty, which is, after all, the very first duty of any Canadian government.

"As you all know, your plant has been chosen, and chosen competitively, to make components for the F-35 Lightning. We are here today to turn sod on a building, the Advance Composites Manufacturing Centre, where some of you will do this work. It's an important milestone in a journey that began a long time ago, so long ago in fact that I think our friends in the Opposition – which was the Government at the time – have forgotten all about it.

"In 1997, Canada signed on to an international consortium to develop the Lockheed-Martin Lightning II. It did so after – after, I repeat – an exhaustive consideration of the alternatives for a CF-18 replacement at the end of this decade. Our predecessors chose the Lightning because they believed it was the best aircraft for Canada. A measure that we supported, because it was and is the right thing to do. So, I do find it sad to hear some in Parliament now expressing hesitations about buying the F35, or even talking openly about cancelling it, should they get the chance.

"Here's the thing: for the last 13 years, through governments both Liberal and Conservative, Canada has been fully involved in the development, design and initial production phases of this world-class aircraft. Governments, beginning with our predecessors, have already put over $150 million of taxpayers' money into it. The prototypes are in the air. So you have to ask yourself: why would you now consider buying something else?

"Today, there is nothing else like the F-35 Lightning. Its once and only serious competitor is now on static display in a Florida museum. And why would you risk leaving our Air Force with nothing to replace the CF-18s when they reach the end of their life? Nothing is not an option.

"Ladies and gentlemen, this is not a political game. It is about lives and, as you know well, it is about jobs.

"You know, I could tell you a long story about the industrial and economic benefits of the F-35 program. How it's the largest cooperative international program since the Second World War, involving our closest allies, and how there will be a huge production run – something like 5,000 aircraft. I can tell you that it means skilled jobs in this industry for a generation and potentially billions of dollars in production and ongoing maintenance.

"This investment in the F-35s will have huge economic benefits for all of Canada's aerospace industry. In fact, last week, the President of the Aerospace Industries Association of Canada, Claude Lajeunesse, congratulated our government.

"In fact, because we're part of the consortium, some 60 Canadian companies just like this already have development contracts. And it is because we are actually buying this aircraft ourselves, that Bristol Aerospace has this contract to build the horizontal stabilisers in this building that we are turning sod for today. That's all because we're inside the project. And if you're on the outside, there will be nothing.

"Now, from a purely economic perspective, from the point of view of creating hi-tech jobs of positioning Winnipeg and Canada in the global aerospace industry, I say again, nothing is not an option. And cancelling these jobs is not an option.

"But this isn't even just about high-technology and economic opportunity for Canada. Our decision to put the hard-earned money of Canadian taxpayers into the F-35 Lightning is based on the same principle that has underpinned every other major military purchase we have made.

"That principle is the needs of our country and the men and women in uniform who put their lives on the line to serve those needs. And that need is for a general purpose force able to respond to a range of possible requirements in an unknowable future.

"Think about it this way. Our newest CF-18s will be 30 years old by the time we take delivery of the first F-35s. And what have we seen since we purchased the CF-18s? And who could have predicted it?

"When we ordered them in the early 1980s, the immediate need was deterrence in central Europe, during the Cold War. We didn't know we would have to respond to a crisis in the Balkans. We didn't know we would be fighting in the Persian Gulf. We didn't know we would have 9-11 and of course the Afghanistan mission today.

"Meanwhile, we still have the responsibility to counter challenges to our own airspace. Unless of course, we are prepared to let somebody else do it for us. And of course this government is not prepared to let anyone other than Canada defend Canadian sovereignty. That's just in the last 30 years. What about the next 30 years? In our troubled world, we can never know what threats or challenges our country will face. We can only know that it will almost certainly face some.

"That is why we bought the C-17s, the new Hercules transports and the new helicopters. In every case, some questioned why we bought them, and in every case, their need has become evident even more quickly than we anticipated. They have given us the capacity to act, whether it is to fulfil our mission in Afghanistan, or respond to humanitarian needs at home and abroad, in Newfoundland or in Haiti as recent examples.

"Now, we need the F-35 Lightning, with all its remarkable capacities of stealth and performance, so that whatever we ask our Air Force in the future, and governments of the future, I guarantee you, regardless of political stripe will ask our men and women in uniform to undertake dangerous tasks. When that comes, we need to have the modern aircraft those men and women need, an aircraft that gives our fighting men and women the best possible chance to do their job against the worst the world can throw at them and come home as safely as is humanly possible.

"That is why we're buying the F-35 Lightning. And that is why you help build them.

"Ladies and gentlemen, I have immensely enjoyed visiting with you today, and I want to spend a little bit of time before we go meeting some more of you. I just want to thank you for the work you do for our country.

"Your jobs and your industry are critical to our future as a country and we mean to make sure that you keep working.

"Thank you very much."

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