Fixed-wing SAR aircraft: Not much of a story

I don't see much real news in this story to justify its being on the front page of the Ottawa Citizen; the hook is a dispute between the Department of Industry and DND over the contract--but's that's about it in terms of news:

Industry Canada, DND feud over how to spend $3 billion
Canadian jobs at centre of spat

It's not as if the fixed-wing SAR saga hasn't been pretty thoroughly covered in the media--see here, here, here, here, here [based on a Citizen story last December], and here.

Update: In the first link in the paragraph above I wrote:

What a shocking idea, that the Air Force might actually set the specifications for aircraft it needs to carry out the missions governments give it.

Rather along the lines of this now received in an e-mail:

... [people should] be thinking of the needs of the CF's mission first and foremost. The choice of where the aircraft is built should be used as nothing more than a tiebreaker in the event two or more competitors are close on every cost and performance criterion. Pork if and only if it doesn't compromise cost or quality, in other words.

There should be an honest competition in any event.

Upperdate: A stinging post by Babbling, and a vigourous discussion thread at Milnet.ca.