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The fact that WWII forced them to abandon the plan does not make it irrelevant, it only shows that they found easier ways to conquer the people. The fact that they didn't have to physically invade with troops, but rather entered into trade deals with our politicians to buy up and suck out our resources doesn't change anything. What would happen if we finally did stand up and insist on 'fair trade deals', that is the problem, too many wimps for too long. <br /> <br />Here is the link <br />http://www.vivelecanada.ca/article.php?story=20040414023037976

   

Stymiest, I appreciate that you want to see others points of view and I really do like to see people thinking. May I suggest you read some of the regular posts as well, because there is some very interesting information there as well. Especially do a search on the Avro Arrow, you'll find more information on the subject than you expressed earlier(I think it was you). It was not destroyed because it was too expensive etc as you mentioned. It was destroyed because our politicians caved in to the U.S. bully! There was much demand for the product in the world and the U.S. did not want another country getting it. <img align=absmiddle src='images/smilies/cry.gif' alt='Cry'>

   

[QUOTE BY= whelan costen] Stymiest, I appreciate that you want to see others points of view and I really do like to see people thinking. May I suggest you read some of the regular posts as well, because there is some very interesting information there as well. Especially do a search on the Avro Arrow, you'll find more information on the subject than you expressed earlier(I think it was you). It was not destroyed because it was too expensive etc as you mentioned. It was destroyed because our politicians caved in to the U.S. bully! There was much demand for the product in the world and the U.S. did not want another country getting it. <img align=absmiddle src='images/smilies/cry.gif' alt='Cry'> [/QUOTE] <br /> <br />Whelan you have completely ignored the fatc that the Avro was just way too expensive. Why don't you actually go find a source for your arguments and back them up. I will get you some figures because you just don't seem too have it clicking in your head <img align=absmiddle src='images/smilies/biggrin.gif' alt='Big Grin'>

   

[QUOTE BY= Stymiest] [QUOTE BY= whelan costen] Stymiest, I appreciate that you want to see others points of view and I really do like to see people thinking. May I suggest you read some of the regular posts as well, because there is some very interesting information there as well. Especially do a search on the Avro Arrow, you'll find more information on the subject than you expressed earlier(I think it was you). It was not destroyed because it was too expensive etc as you mentioned. It was destroyed because our politicians caved in to the U.S. bully! There was much demand for the product in the world and the U.S. did not want another country getting it. <img align=absmiddle src='images/smilies/cry.gif' alt='Cry'> [/QUOTE] <br /> <br />Whelan you have completely ignored the fatc that the Avro was just way too expensive. Why don't you actually go find a source for your arguments and back them up. I will get you some figures because you just don't seem too have it clicking in your head <img align=absmiddle src='images/smilies/biggrin.gif' alt='Big Grin'> [/QUOTE] <br /> <br />Canada was smaller at the time, but the Arrow was actually quite affordable compared to other modern fighters, and way ahead of its time. It was simply more expensive than the OLD, antiquated fighters that preceded it, so everyone wasn't used to the costs. <br /> <br />Whether it was a reasonable contract or not, it was clearly too late to save money by cancelling it AFTER the R & D was already done. They could've at least rolled the thing out, proven it worked, sold it to France, and saved some from destruction. <img align=absmiddle src='images/smilies/rolleyes.gif' alt='Rolling Eyes'>

   

Quote by Stymiest: 'Whelan you have completely ignored the fatc that the Avro was just way too expensive. Why don't you actually go find a source for your arguments and back them up. I will get you some figures because you just don't seem too have it clicking in your head' <br /> <br />I've been waiting for your figures. In the mean time, I will be quite frank, it is my opinion, that the Avrow Arrow was a huge success, costs not an issue, because the major funds were already spent when it was trashed, it was purely political to kill the deal. That is my opinion, now since it is history and I love it, but today we are faced with the take over of Canada by American corporate interests and this country means everything to me. So while I would love to spend time debating this issue, I am running in the next provincial election which is critical to the NOW period, and I just spent several weeks researching and debating the BMD which is another major threat to Canada's soveriegnty. So whenever you have time to search for your sources, I'll be happy to review them. In the meantime I am committed to preventing further Avrow like fiascos and saving my country from becoming a colony! <img align=absmiddle src='images/smilies/rolleyes.gif' alt='Rolling Eyes'>

   

I believe its generally accepted that the Avro Arrow was cancelled because of opposition by America; at least, that's what I was taught by several different outlets. If anyone has proof that it was too expensive (and then proof that money was saved by destroying as opposed to selling the Arrow) I'd like to see it. Maybe we've all been misinformed and Stymiest has the answers? <br /> <br />While I'd never consider myself a conspiracy theorist, why shouldn't Canada take an active role in protecting its sovereignty? It only takes willpower to say no; it takes a lot of lives to throw the bums out.

   

Umm I don't think Stymiest or I ever claimed that we saved money by scrapping the Avro and all it's designs, we were just stating that trying to develop and implement a cadillac like the Arrow was too much for a country like Canada, so it probably wasn't a good thing to pour millions of dollars into in the first place. The whole thing was a waste, but if the project had continued, we would have wasted millions more building these things and implementing them. This was the Cold War. We needed quantity over quality to ensure that we could patrol our entire country, which I don't think I need to remind you is the second largest in the world, and the Soviet Union was practically next door. And at the time when the Arrow was cancelled, the threat of Soviet bombers was diminishing, replaced by the threat of Soviet missiles, so a new interceptor was no longer a priority. In fact, all interceptors designed to ward off a Soviet attack were retired in the 1980s. There is only one interceptor still in use today: the MiG-31. Is this because they were old? No, it's because the threat of a Soviet attack with bombers was near inexistent in the face of a missile attack. The money spent researching and developing the Arrow would have been better saved to spend on more cost effective and practical fighters. So my opinion is that we could have finished developping the jet, but we had better options for an interceptor than the Arrow, so we never would have implemented it. I think the best solution would have been to finish the developpment, build one or two token Arrows, and park them in a hangar somewhere. That way people would see the Arrow for what it was: a huge waste of money, time and resources for something that we couldn't use. <br /> <br /><b>"The US is also often blamed for the demise, often with claims that the US aerospace industry was upset about the 'upstarts' in Canada that were making them look foolish, or alternatively that they were hunting for Avro employees. Quite to the contrary, the US military was distressed at the prospect of losing a first-rate staff in their own North American ally, and even considered buying 50 Arrows to give back to the RCAF in order to ensure production."</b> <br /> <br />That is from something I read here: <br /><a href="http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Avro-Arrow">http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Avro-Arrow</a>

   

Sorry that link wasn't working I just corrected it. <br /> <br /><a href="http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Avro-Arrow">http://www.nationmaster.com/encyclopedia/Avro-Arrow</a> <br /> <br />Should work now. <img align=absmiddle src='images/smilies/smile.gif' alt='Smile'>

   

thank you whalen for addressing what the hell I was trying to knock into these people in the first place. <br /> <br />

   

z whalen: You realize you just based your argument on an article taken from an on-line encyclopedia that allows anyone to edit any entry, at any time, without proof of knowledge, experience or, well, proof? I could go back to the encyclopedia, change the entry for Avro Arrow, and your source would be useless. That's not to say that every scrap of information isn't possibly true, I'm just saying, your kidding, right? <br /> <br />

   

I'm not basing my argument on that single piece of online data, I just thought that it was an interesting article. I have done my research and this is my opinion, that the Arrow was a mistake. As soon as I bring up a different point of view, especially when this point of view is deemed "right-wing," you immediately try to discredit me as someone who doesn't know a thing. I don't think I've ever called anyone's credentials into question here, and if I did, show me a quote and I will apologize. I like hearing different opinions and I like when these opinions can be debated freely. But you can't write off everyone with a different opinion as a right-wing parrot. Normally this wouldn't bother me so much, but don't you routinely attack Stymiest for doing the exact same thing? A lot of you have used his brash comments as an excuse to attack his opinions and his character. Two wrongs don't make a right boys and girls. Why don't we just put our anger and aggression behind us and get down to discussing these topics properly. I don't think anyone on this site is of below average intelligence and I believe everyone is quite capable of reasoning and common sense. We shouldn't be confined by right-wing/left-wing mentalities, we have to understand that everyone's opinion matters. That is what democracy is built on.

   

Interesting thought that I can have a history of attacking someone in one day of posting... <br /> <br />As a point of interest though, in the fifties, Canada was going through its most prosperous period in the twentieth century. Projects like the Arrow were important because the research and development could have provided a base for further expansion of our industries. Much of American technology comes from their defense research; Canada no longer has those resources, because we scrapped things like the Arrow. The project also provided jobs for Canadians researchers and engineers, while now we have a massive exodus of these trained people to places like the US.

   

Look Brianne I wasn't saying that you had a history of attacking people. I was trying to get everyone to stop all the bickering. I was extending an olive branch but once again it was taken as a sword.

   

What sword? I didn't realize I had said anything inflammatory in my post. However, 'bickering' may not be the best way to describe this argument. Nor do I think it is correct to claim, as you have in a previous post, that we 'lefties' are attacking Stymiest. We have arguments (the debatable kind) and they are strong, but not biased. <br /> <br />In the argument that the Avro was just too expensive and should never have been developed (which I believe is your argument, at the root), there are flaws. There is a general sentiment in many more conservative people that government spending on anything extraordinary is bad, bad, bad. That's not true. Sometimes, you have to spend money to make money, as business always tells us- government spending included. <br /> <br />What Stymiest and you seem to think (that Canada has never been a nation with the financial resources to do this type of thing) is wrong, and with it you show that you probably haven't considered Canada's economic history outside of a high school classroom. While the things you learn in high school history are important, they don't prepare you to see trends and influences, which is what history actually is. Your arguing this topic as if fact is absolute, while it isn't. Fact is in the eye of the beholder. <br /> <br />For instance, I feel that the years 1939-1974 were some of the most proserous in Canadian history. Because of our banking system, our interest rates, our low debt, low(er) unemployment and rising standard of living and education, Canada was in a position by the mid-50s to invest heavily in Reaseach and Development. <br /> <br />Now, if you don't agree, don't call me stupid or say I'm attacking you. Show me that the trends I have noted are incorrect, or that they do not support my conclusion. <br />

   

Brianne for the final time I am not calling you stupid, nor am I trying to say that you are uninformed. In fact, you seem to be implying that I have not researched this outside of a high school class room, which I have. I can ensure you that my knowledge of Canadian history extend far beyond the high school classroom. Is it possible that we are both just as informed and knowledgeable, but have come to different conclusions? I think it is. I don't consider myself a conservative, nor do I consider myself a liberal. My opinion of the Arrow is based on it's practicality, or it's lack there of. My argument is that it was a technically suberb plane, and it was economically feasible for us to produce it, but that militarily we had little use for it, so why waste the money? Just because are economy is booming doesn't mean that we stop spending wisely. The thing that irks a lot of people about the cancelation is that the designs and planes were destroyed, but this was pretty sensitive stuff, not the kind of technology that should fall into Soviet hands. I understand why you think it shouldn't have been cancelled, and I respect your perspective, but mine is that we poured all this money into this one huge project with enormous ambitions, when we could have developped a moderate interceptor more quickly, and still had money left over to spend developping other technologies.

   

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