. What the Avro Arrow should have taught Ottawa about the F-35 Thursday, April 5, 2012 - Globe and Mail by Harry Swain Harry Swain is a former federal deputy minister of Industry Canada and Indian and Northern Affairs Canada A Tory prime minister, secure in his majority but highly suspicious of his political enemies, finds himself blind-sided by obscure processes in the departments of Defence and Industry that had gravitated to the most advanced fighter plane in the world -- but one that cost more than the country could afford. It was fifty years ago, the prime minister was John Diefenbaker, and the plane was the Avro Arrow. Bowing to fiscal reality affected the next election, and started a national myth of loss and betrayal as persistent as the National Energy Policy or the humiliation of Quebec. The parallels to the F-35 are eerie, but there are important differences. The basic story of vested interests in both the public and private sectors reinforcing each others’ dreams of the biggest, baddest fighter in the whole world and devil take the taxpayer’s dollars is the same, as is prevarication and mendacity when the truth about cost starts to leak out. Both governments, half a century apart, initially defended their establishments while privately getting more and more alarmed about the financial cost of continuing versus the political costs of cancellation. But there are some important differences, too. The F-35 does not have a big maple leaf on it, nor is it a vehicle for nationalist pride. Despite the fiction that we and the other non-U.S. buyers had an important role in design and development, we were in fact merely decorative afterthoughts in a U.S.-dominated process. And a large Canadian industrial base will not have to be stood down if the F-35 is cancelled or subjected to competition. 'Both aircraft were obsolete the day they first flew.' .