Avro Canada:
The purpose of Avro Canada is to provide the government with sufficient public support and social license to explore built-in Canada options for the Royal Canadian Air Force. Over the previous decade, there has been a lot of discussion regarding the acquisition of Lockheed Martin’s F-35 fighter jet. This program is extremely costly and has insufficient benefit Canadian businesses, manufacturers or personnel as the majority of the work is done in the United States.
Avro Canada has several guiding principles which we believe should be applied to any military acquisition. These acquisitions represent expenditure of Canadian Taxpayer dollars, and as such, we believe they should consider the benefits, if any, that will be passed back to Canadian worker, businesses and communities.
We would like your support in petitioning the government with the following:
To the Honourable the House of Commons in Parliament assembled. The Petition of the undersigned … who now avail themselves of their ancient and undoubted right thus to present a grievance common to your Petitioners in the certain assurance that your honourable House will therefor provide a remedy, humbly sheweth that the current military expenditure in Canada does not take into account the benefits that government expenditure would have on Canada’s technology, technical capability and economy. We would kindly ask the government to review its current fighter jet acquisition program to consider the following:
- How much of the tax payer expenditure will be used to support local businesses in suppliers in the manufacture of the required equipment?
- How many Canadians will receive direct and indirect employment opportunities from this military expenditure?
- Does the military expenditure result in equipment that fulfills Canada’s actual statement of requirements?
- Does the option selected result in the best possible acquisition in terms of cost and capability?
- Will this use of taxpayer dollars benefit the taxpayers? If so, by how much?
We understand the need for new equipment and support it wholeheartedly. We believe that our men and women in the Armed Forces deserve equipment that will allow them to fulfill their roles as safely and easily as possible. We do not believe that this should come at the extreme cost to Canadian taxpayers and kindly ask for your considerations of the options before you to choose a program that will result in technical and economic benefits for Canadians. We have signed this petition to show the widespread support that we believe exists in Canada for a built-in-Canada program, and would urge you to act as our representatives, in our best interests.
If you agree with the above, statement, please join us by signing your name at ___________________.
Our goal for this petition is to get 100,000 signatures by May 1st, 2017 to give Parliament time to read, discuss and hopefully act on our petition.
If you strongly agree with the above statement, we would ask that you show this to your friends, families and co-workers. Canada has the potential to capture a golden opportunity with the recreation of an old industry in Canada that will provide economic and technical advantages for years to come.
If you want to do more than tell your friends, we would ask you to share this on facebook or other social media. If you have experience in publication, or connections to government, or simply want to get more involved, let us know, by joining our volunteer group on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/groups/1366268176731605/) or sending us an email at avrocanada@outlook.com