Chief of Defence Staff Jonathan Vance harumphed when confronted at a parliamentary committee with questioning based on MLI’s survey of defence experts on the issue of the advisability of the government’s plan to purchase an interim fleet of fighter planes. The roughly 75 experts we surveyed agreed by a margin of 88 percent that the purchase was ill-advised and harmful to Canada’s defence interests. In my book, 88 percent agreement may fairly be characterised as a consensus. Less than 7 percent disagreed with that consensus. General Vance, however, dismissively said before the parliamentary committee that he was an expert too. Of course he is, but his reply inevitably invites a discussion of what the experts around him at DND and in the RCAF think. It is not a pretty picture for General Vance’s claims of superior expertise. That’s the case I laid out in an op-ed published in the Winnipeg Free Press on July 3rd. You can read the text of my op-ed here.