Avro Canada CF-105 Arrow - Political Issues

Political Issues

From 1953 onwards, some senior Canadian military officials at the Chief of Staffs began to question the program.It was not until June 1957, however, when the governing Liberals lost the federal election and a Progressive Conservative government under John Diefenbaker took power, that the aircraft's fate began to noticeably change. Diefenbaker, from the Canadian west, had campaigned on a platform of reining in what the Conservatives claimed was "rampant Liberal spending." The Arrow was not the only major industrial project targeted during the campaign; others such as the "million dollar monster" postal sorting computer from Ferranti Canada were singled out for additional political scorn. A criticism that had been voiced in the 1950s in the media was that Avro Canada as a company had little interest in competing with its products on the market, and instead had come to rely solely upon the availability of government financing for its activities. Nonetheless, by 1958, the parent company had become Canada's third largest business enterprise and had primary interests in rolling stock, steel and coal, electronics and aviation with 39 different companies under the A. V. Roe Canada banner.

In August 1957, the Diefenbaker government signed the NORAD (North American Air Defense) Agreement with the United States, making Canada a partner with American command and control. The USAF was in the process of completely automating their air defence system with the SAGE project, and offered Canada the opportunity to share this sensitive information for the air defence of North America. One aspect of the SAGE system was the BOMARC nuclear-tipped anti-aircraft missile. This led to studies on basing BOMARCs in Canada in order to push the line further north, even though the deployment was found to be extremely costly.

Defence against ballistic missiles was also becoming a priority. The existence of Sputnik had also raised the spectre of attack from space, and, as the year progressed, word of a "missile gap" began spreading. An American brief of the meeting with Pearkes reported Pearkes "stated that the problem of developing a defence against missiles while at the same time completing and rounding out defence measures against manned bombers posed a serious problem for Canada from the point of view of expense". It is also said Canada could afford the Arrow or Bomarc/SAGE, but not both.

By 11 August 1958, Pearkes requested cancellation of the Arrow, but the Cabinet Defence Committee (CDC) refused. He tabled it again in September, and recommended installation of the Bomarc missile system. The latter was accepted but, again, the CDC refused to cancel the entire Arrow program. The CDC wanted to wait until a major review in 31 March 1959, however, the Sparrow/Astra system was cancelled in September 1958. Efforts to continue the program through cost-sharing with other countries were then explored.