High stakes

Stephen Harper. "To do what Mr. Ignatieff and his allies suggest now is to put in jeopardy every single job in this room and every single job that depends on it in the Canadian aerospace industry with no possible upside whatsoever for the Canadian air force ... Their position here is playing politics with the lives of our men and women in uniform and the jobs of the people in this room."

Michael Ignatieff. He told a crowd of 150 people that Harper failed to explain why the contract for the fighter jets wasn’t tendered, and why the country needs to spend $9 billion on planes. "That’s undemocratic and I will fight it all the way," Ignatieff said, adding: "We’ve got a government that I don’t think respects the institution of democracy."