OK, not really.

In fact, I wrote an email to the Record, in response to today’s editorial. It remains to be seen if they publish it. In the meantime, here is either a preview (or just a view, I guess, if it’s never published anywhere but here):

Record Editorial Board, I feel you’re letting the Conservatives off too lightly.

How could they have found out the true cost of the F-35s when bureaucrats were withholding that information? Well, for one, they could have listened to Kevin Page, and the Opposition parties, instead of mocking them. For another, they could have read the many media stories outlining concerns about F-35 cost overruns. From those sources, I knew perfectly well that the F-35s were going to cost a lot more than had been budgeted, and I have considerably fewer resources than the Minister of Defense.

So if the Minister didn’t know, he was either completely incompetent, or was being willfully ignorant.

Do you even remember why the Conservatives were found to be in contempt of Parliament? It was for refusing to give Canadians financial information—including, very specifically—the true cost of the F-35 program. One suspects they didn’t want to provide that information for fear it would show that they were wrong and their critics were right.

If the Conservatives had looked into the matter then, instead of launching into an unnecessary election, they could have dealt with this issue months ago, instead of waiting to be embarrassed by an Auditor’s report.

Why should the bureaucrats be blamed for not answering questions the Conservatives refused to ask?

If anyone gets fired, it should the politicians who, instead of effectively managing the country, chose to hold it in contempt by refusing to find out the facts.

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And you know, it’s not even an issue I care that much about. At least the military actually needs jets, unlike say, the prisons in a time of declining crime rates. But it’s just emblematic of the things I generally hate about this government: the arrogance, the disdain for facts, the disrespect. And that’s not even getting into all the bald-faced lies Harper told, in parliament and at press conferences, about how we had a contract for the F-35s. Even one that protected us against price increases.

And their defense now? Thank God we have no contract! “As we have said repeatedly!” (More at Maclean’s.)