J Kendrick wrote:You're kidding, right?
How do you imagine that having thrown away Canada's one chance at being the world leader in the aeronautics industry and all of the associated technologies that would have gone with it could possibly have been a good thing?
There is so much myth surrounding what was then a top secret project, it really is tough to tell if it was a Money Pit (doomed to failure) or a Missed Opportunity. The RCAF had meddled so much in the project that it had already missed several opportunities to complete successfully, i.e. - changed specs at the last minute. Plus, the thinking at the time was that there was not enough money to do the Avro Arrow and BOMARC/SAGE. Not doing the latter probably meant pulling out of NORAD, which no one wanted in that time of Cold War "missile gap" fears.
Sputnik had people scared half to death. In fact, its launch overshadowed the rollout of the first Arrow on October 4, 1957. With Sputnik, it was not just long distance missiles (ICBM) but now missiles launched from space.
Looking back, it is hard to imagine a time when little children, like me, were being trained in elementary school to try and survive the aftermath of a nuclear attack. It was not a good time to be asking for money for something risky.