Article content

In the beginning was the Avro Arrow. Limited in range, horrendously over budget, strategically obsolete before the first plane was built, the Arrow, made by the shambolic A.V. Roe Company of Canada, found not a single foreign buyer and was cancelled before its mounting costs could eat up the entire defence budget. Diefenbaker’s hand was on the knife, but the Liberals would have done the same, and said so.

Ah, but it was ours! A technological marvel, designed, engineered and built right here in Canada! Proof of C.D. Howe’s typically grandiose boast that “Canada can manufacture anything!” How can you count the costs of a dream? In the aftermath of its demise, it became popular wisdom that the Arrow was marked for death, not because it was too expensive, but because it was too good: the Americans, jealous of our prowess, somehow forced Dief to kill it.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or Andrew Coyne: Time to bust the myth. Canada does not have to be in aerospace Back to video

So was born the myth of the Canadian aerospace industry, fuelled by a heady mix of techno-nationalism and public money, an industry with no particular raison d’être except the near-religious dogma that “Canada must be in aerospace.” (And why must Canada be in aerospace? Because that’s the kind of thing a country like Canada should be in.)