Posted on 06/08/2013 9:41:53 AM PDT by rickmichaels
OTTAWA - Prime Minister Stephen Harper is getting flak over what critics say is a partisan new paint job given to the military plane that flies him to overseas events.
The Royal Canadian Air Force recently had RCAF-01, the specially outfitted CC-150 Polaris used by the prime minister, in the shop for a "heavy maintenance" checkup, a $2.5-million routine it goes through every six years.
The plane normally gets a new paint job during this checkup, but instead of coming out of the shop with a fresh coat of its dull, nondescript greenish grey, it came out with a sparkling red, white, and blue paint job with lots of swooshes and swoops.
Using red, white, and blue paint on the plane cost $50,000 more than the old paint would.
And it didn't matter to the opposition that the red, white, and blue of RCAF-01 happens to be the official colours of the Royal Canadian Air Force. All they could see was the red, white, and blue of the Conservative Party of Canada.
"I don't think we've ever seen a government in Canadian history that so readily blurred the lines between government money and party money," NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair told reporters Friday. "The colours of the plane, the whole detailing, is clearly patterned on the Conservative Party."
In the House of Commons, Liberal MP John McCallum kept it up.
"I did not think the government could come up with one action that would waste money, hurt the Canadian Forces, and inflate the prime minister's ego all at once." he said.
Conservative MPs defended the plane's new livery.
"This repainting (was) part of the routine maintenance. It is a small proportion of the overall cost. And it is done with a view to promoting Canada, promoting Canada's interest abroad, in our best traditions, as we have always done," said Conservative MP Chris Alexander.
Harper will put his freshly painted jet to its first use next week to take cabinet ministers, aides, and a group of Parliamentary Press Gallery reporters to Europe, where he will touch down in London, Paris and Dublin before finishing up at the annual G8 summit to be held this year in Lough Erne, Northern Ireland.
While he's London, Harper will give a speech to the U.K. Parliament, an honour not afforded a Canadian prime minister since William Lyon Mackenzie King in 1944.
Old and New Paint Jobs:
Looks like a flying turd.
Canada is in fantastic shape economically. We are awash in oil and gas and other resources. PM Harper is doing an outstanding job of managing the country and its finances. Our biggest problem is getting all that oil out to the market.
The opposition parties are populated by idiots and lunatics. They are: the left, the far left, and the separatists who think they are going to leave Canada, be better off, and get paid to do so. They have absolutely nothing to complain about. So they complain about a fantastic paint job on a plane that will probably be a prototype for every RCAF plane that gets repainted.
That's about it.
Thanks. Labeau on Hogan’s Heroes used to say it quite often.
My spousal unit is a Maritimer. I showed her this and her opinion is not the cost but that the Pea Soupers were not consulted from a fashion sense.
Paint it like a plate of poutine and all will be resolved.
The hammer & sickle would be even more fitting.
Among my most vivid airport memories was,while leaving the old Kai Tak Airport after having just arrived for my first visit to Hong Kong,looking up and seeing a bright orange Braniff 747 just about scraping the nearby rooftops as it approached the runway.I managed to shoot a picture of it but have since lost it.This was something like 30 years ago.
Yep. The old paint job looks awful for a plane that has to make diplomatic trips. Imagine AF1 painted dark grey.
Remind me to never go there.
True that.
I flew Allegheny in a Shorts Brothers wing-over plywood airplane into Indianapolis from Cleveland. After we all got on the plane, a crew member duct taped the door to keep out wind whistles... There was no stewardess, so the co-pilot pushed a cooler full of Cokes back from the front and said, "take one and pass it back."
Reminds me of the old CP Air ads with Chief Dan George. Two Indians meet and the first one raises his hand and says, “How”. Dan George looks at him and says, “How? CP Air.”
AF1 should be painted to look like the US Constitution or the Holy Bible. Maybe then Zero wouldn’t use it to fly more campaign missions than the US Army Air Corp and the RAF flew bombing missions in WWII.
The new paint job looks much better. I guess the Critics missed seeing all the big red Maple Leaves.
I have an alternative outlook that is growing on me. Treat politicians like monks. Royal expenses have always been justifies as a means of making the country look better, and politicians in western nations have moved right into that mold.
Perhaps we should let a country's reputation speak for itself and make our politicians live an official life of poverty and utilitarianism (like monks). Essentially, remove all the perks of office.
Our congress critters now have larger personal staffs and more perks than your average Fortune 500 CEO.
A de havilland Twin Otter.
Well, opinions are worth about what you pay for ‘em and here’s mine:
1. The new paint doesn’t look ‘regal.’ AF1 certainly does. The new paint job looks, instead, like a sort of an airlines paint job. It’s too commercial. It tries too hard. It’s asking for the contract, your vote, your applause...”
2. “The True North Strong and Free” is a rather embarrassing thing to paint under the cockpit. It’s just, well... Faggy.
3. Yep, I DO like the old paint job better. It’s strong, understated, elegant, with just a hint of military bad-ass.
4. The cool thing about the old paint job is that it looks just as ‘strong and free’ as AF1 but looks TOTALLY different. Hard to do.
Final call? The design won’t survive the next election.
Ha, that's nothing compared to the big ego just south of there.
Yep I remember the charter from his first campaign. Can’t believe AF1 has escaped the paint job for this long.
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