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Have we got a plane for you? Sometime during the next year, the federal government will tell Canadians which of half-a-dozen new fighter planes we are going to spend $2.5 billion on. But if we think that our Canadian government is making that decision, we're kidding ourselves. The decision about what we get was made for us Canadians, the instant we announced we wanted just one model of fighter, to serve dual requirements in Europe and in North America. The plane will be the F-15 Eagle, made by McDonnell Douglas, costing somewhere between $18 and $25 million each. We will buy that plane because that's what the United States needs to sell us. The U.S. has chosen the F-15 for its own forces. But even the Pentagon can't afford it any more; its cost to them has soared from $12.8 million each in 1976, 10$17.8in 1978. And it's still going up. The only way the U.S. can bring its own defence expenses within limits is to sell more F-15's to other countries, to make a profit, and to reduce their perplane production and development costs. Armaments expert and author Tom Gervasi summed up the U.S. philosophy: 'The F-15 is the aircraft we need, so it had to be offered abroad.' That's why President Carter and Defense officials were so anxious to win approval for their sale of 60 F-15's to Saudi Arabia. As it now turns out, the Saudis didn't ask for, and hadn't considered, the F-15. Rather, it was the only plane offered by the U.S. An Air Force Colonel has been quoted: ' The F-15 has a cost problem; and it makes sense to amortize the overrun with a big-sale to the Saudis.' So the Air Force is doing what it can to help McDonnell Douglas market their fighter. Japan has reportedly agreed to take 100 F-15's over the next six years, at approximately $27 million each. Other countries indicated as probable purchasers, for a total -export sale of some 400 F-15's, include Australia, Western Germany, France, and--yes-- Canada. - Because of the Pentagon's own commitment to the F-15, no other U.S. fighter stands much of a chance. And the U.S. can apply far more incentives (and clout, if necessary) to our Canadian economy than can the European consortium which is also lobbying for our purchase. Now, the F-15 Eagle is a remarkable fighter plane. Experts describe it as the most sophisticated combat aircraft in the world. It can fly at 212 times the speed of sound; can carry a stupifying load of cannon shells, missiles, napalm and turn sharper and climb faster than any other similar plane. But is that what Canada needs? Should we be buying fighters at all? The Rev. Charles Catto, a ~~ 5 SN ARN FL SAN N ; S AN 0 oe OO WN 11 \ NAN ) Nt N X N A W = SO NN LL 2 1 "yy, NN XM DN ND / ' er \) Ia AR S Z United Church minister who runs a world-wide volunteer program called Operation 'Beaver, has been crying for action. For the cost of each F-15 Eagle, he points out, we could build up to 1,000 houses. Their construction would create two to three times as many jobs as would result from defence contracts; and they would provide work for the unskilled and semi-skilled, who suffer most from unemployment, rather than for the highly skilled, who are already in short supply. Providing adequate housing at reasonable prices has been demonstrated to produce better health and better educational standards among children, especially among low income and native peoples. Those benefits, and the houses themselves, will surely be useful to Canada for a lot longer than even the most sophisticated fighter aircraft in the world. Unchurched Editorial Circle of danger Each day an ever-widening circle of danger surrounds mankind. It is a vicious circle that reaches the front pages only occasionally. It is the combination of babies and bombs. Each day, the world's nations are spending considerably more than $1 billion on their bombs and their military establish- I / / ¥, A Nyy SAL WN SAN A ) VZ ASA AYO : ANRGAAN rea 7/3 a tt100. 2120 SNA NA >] m= SS X ~ f @©<> --t SN S N EN SSN NN aa SN N EES ments. And each day, 170,000 new babies come into a world threatened by a shortage of basic resources. In a century that is haunted by the memory of two global wars and countless lesser but never-the-less grisly conflicts, the great powers and all of the smaller nations are spending between $375 billion and $400 billion on various military expenditures - each year. The $350 billion figure for the year 1976 represented more than the combined national product of South Asia, the Far East and Africa. The danger of the proliferation of weapons is matched only by the other potential disaster facing humanity -- overpopulation. If present trends continue, Mexico, one century from today, will have -a larger population then the Soviet Union and China combined. An unchecked population in the poorer lands will mean that the already crowded island nation of Indonesia would have 1.78 billion people in 100 years, or almost half the present population of the globe. " The circle of danger can and must be broken. A greater awareness of the twin curses-that haunt us -- arms proliferation and overpopulation -- can help meet the crisis. Once people understand fully that only they themselves can control the destiny of humanity, the solution will be at least within our grasp. bill SM CANADIAN SUMMERS There's only one thing wrong with this country - aside from too many politicians, too much winter, too much inflation, too little employment - and that is its summer. A Canadian summer is sneaky, seductive, 'and even sinister. That may sound like a paradox, when the sky is as blue as John Turner's eyes, day after day, and the sun is as hot as Rene Levesques' tongue, day after day. But it's a fact. Canada's summer is deteriorating, debilitating and eventually destroying our normally sturdy national character. At least it is mine. And as I look about me, I know I'm not alone. During the other seasons, we know where we are - or are not - going. We know where we are at. autumns, our basic pessimism prevails. We greet with little harsh barks of sardonic laughter, and a knowing wagging of heads, every doomsday prophet, from ancient Indian sages to the Farmers' Almanac, who tells us that it's going to be a long, tough winter. ) When the first snow flies in November, we are as delighted as a Bible-thumping Through our magnificent ley soul-saving minister dumped into a com- munity of arant sinners. We start building up our personal library of short stories and novels, entitled such as: "Snow" and '"To Build a Fire' and "Lost in the Barrens" and 'Christmas Eve at Eighty Below", each designed to make us chuckle as we sit there with the oil furnace wafting up the tropic temperatures from below. For the next four or five months, we spin our wheels on the ice and snuffle through the snow, happy as pigs in poop, complimenting each other on the facts that "there's a turrible lotta 'flu around" and that "'She's a long ways from over yet", even though it's the end of February and it hasn't snowed for three weeks. From the first of March to the middle of May, regardless of the mist of green sprouting everywhere, the ice gone out of the bay, and the thermometer rising to the gasping. point, the boys in the coffee shop and the girls at the hair-dresser's keep reminding each other merrily of the year we had eighteen inches on April 12th, and the time we had a killing frost on the 24th of . May. Suddenly it's June. Lilac scent. Straw- berries. Flowers: popping. Mosquitoes humming. Temperatures soaring. But we don't give up. We still know the score. "We'll likely have a cold, wet summer", or "the dam' grass is growin' too fast. Hadda cut her twice this week", or "Too many squirrels. That means a long, hard winter." And then, without our even realizing it, we've slid into the miracle of July and August, and our dour national natures are completely fragmented, alienated. We don't know who we are, where we are going, or where we are at. We go to pieces. We forget all about our ten-month love affair with Survival and begin acting as human 'and normal as those despised Mediterraneans we want to kéep out of the country. *- Elderly gentlemen with legs like grass-- hoppers and guts like a member of the Hell's Angels, go sauntering along the beach in shorts and shades, shameless. Grandmothers, who the rest of the year preach probity, purity and good posture, slither into bikinis, grease themselves all over, and lie around like starlets at the Riviera, soaking up thé sun and any glances that come their way. Young executives, normally suited, shirt- ed and tied, wander about backyard barbe- cues, corsets abandoned, bare bellies hang- ing over slovenly shorts, downing gin and tonic as though it were the medicine to end all ailments. ) _ is.looking. Male teenagers suddenly emerge with more macho than a Mexican, chests bared, shorts cut right back to the public hair line, saggering, bare-footed, constantly brushing or combing their other well-shaped hair, saying in effect, "Here I am, girls. Ain't I gorgeous? Better grad before someone else does." Young ladies who would not be caught dead in anything but jeans the other ten months of the year, stroll down main street in outfits that would have been considered scandalous a couple of decades ago in a hootchi-kootchi show. (If you don't know what that is, ask your dad). And tiny children are probably the worst, because-they don't know or care anything about that Other Ten Months. They.go ape, pointing at birds, plucking leaves, chasing squirrels, splashing, running in the sun, and tearing off their clothes' the moment no one toe I guess we're a bit like the Swedes. They're the most sensual, sun-loving, sexy . people in the world when they get south of the Straits of Saggerack. The rest of year, they're too busy committing suicide. We're not much for the latter, we Can- adians. At least, not physically. We do it mentally and emotionally. But just the other day, I noticed the acorns falling in great quantities. We all know what that means. All together, now, and let's have some harmony. "It's going to be a LONG, TOUGH WINTER." ' ahd } ay, SITE 0 BE SAE a AY SRT RIVES ATES WIE Ia Cas 3 ov ERT igh oa a ME ng | SOR a Lai \' rte PN Gh FA CPR HEC SE LAR Ber TERS en hl SE editorial poge A o