Stephen Harper and his Conservatives have fought hard for their coveted F-35 contract, even in spite of inflating costs and warnings from the US congress. Now, without surprise, the Conservatives have been forced to retreat on the purchase of planes that wouldn’t even have been equipped to fly! It must be a very painful day to be the Conservative strategist because the party has invested a lot of political capital and a lot of taxpayers’ time into this deal. We all know that time is money and Canada’s air-force doesn’t have forever to wait for new planes and we all know that we can get state of the art planes for a better price than the Conservative offer for the F-35 defects.

Since the defeat of Paul Martin’s Liberal Minority Government in  2006 by Stephen Harper’s Conservatives, the news has only gotten worse, and worse, and worse for the Liberal Party of Canada. The once mighty party was reduced to third party status last year after repeated hits, losses and unfavorable conditions. However, there is a glimmer of hope at the horizon. As the Liberals grow and rebuild, a new Forum poll for The National Post shows, in favor of other polls that have been conducted, that star candidate Justin Trudeau can take them back to the top if he becomes their leader.

With recent polls showing 41% of Canadians don’t trust any of the current leaders on the Canadian political spectrum and 16% don’t know which party they want to support or don’t support any of them, one sees that Canadian politics has become bleak. The Liberals have been scrutinized by the media over their relevance and their rebuilding process but considering the obvious discontent among the electorate, they have a chance to make serious gains.

While the new Nanos poll told us that the Conservatives and NDP were in a statistical tie, that doesn’t mean that either party was particularly liked and when it comes to choosing between the major parties to form a government, Canadians are dragging their feet.

Defense Minister Peter MacKay admitted today that the government knew for two years that the F-35 contract would cost $10 billion more than was said to Parliament and the Canadian people.

Rae didn’t make his defense against Conservative attacks of his record easy. By admitting on January 11, that the deficit increased and so did the debt, and admitting that some decisions were unpopular, Rae played into the Tory machine and if history has taught us anything, Liberals who get targeted by the machine struggle to win national support.

The Conservatives continue to play the blame game rather than look into allegations of voter suppression and voter fraud as more people take to the streets in what can be described as a loss of confidence in our electoral system.