OTTAWA - The Harper Conservatives have joined forces with the Bloc Quebecois to defeat a Liberal call for competitive bids on $16-billion worth of new fighter jets.
New Democrats voted with the Liberals in the House of Commons, but it wasn't nearly enough to pass a motion calling on the government to immediately drop plans for an untendered contract with Lockheed Martin to supply and maintain 65 stealth fighter jets.
The motion, which the Conservatives made clear they would ignore if passed, directed the government to seek competitive bids to replace Canada's aging CF-18s.
But Bloc Quebecois MPs, looking to protect the Quebec-based aerospace industry, joined with the government in soundly defeating the non-binding motion.
Industry Minister Tony Clement had already pre-emptively rejected the vote, calling it partisan Liberal gamesmanship and saying a Liberal government would hold a "dithering competition" to come up with the same F-35 option that's already on the table.
Liberals and New Democrats said the government's behaviour shows a contempt for parliament and a disrespect for taxpayer dollars.
Liberals and New Democrats note that no F-35 contract has yet been signed, so Canada can still back out and hold an open competition that might produce a cheaper fighter jet and create more jobs for Canada's aerospace industry.
The vote on the Liberal motion was defeated in the Commons by a vote of 170-100, with Bloc MPs lining up en masse with the Conservative minority government.
