Dimitri Soudas: The planes are coming, the planes are coming!

And so, as you can see from the latest news stories, it seems Russian aircraft, in the form of two TU-95 Bears, approached Canada a couple of days ago yesterday. Canada sprung into action, sending two of its own CF-18 Hornet fighter aircraft to shadow the Russians until they turned around.

How do we know this? Well, in early hours of Wednesday morning, Dimitri Soudas, the prime minister's director of communications told us so, in an email sent to members of the national press gallery.

"At their closest point, the Russian aircraft were 30 nautical miles from Canadian soil.  The CF-18s shadowed the Bear aircraft until they turned around. The two CF-18s came from 4 Wing Cold Lake, Alberta.

Thanks to the rapid response of the Canadian Forces, at no time did the Russian aircraft enter sovereign Canadian airspace."

It turns out that this kind of thing actually happens about a dozen times a year. And each time it does, a note from the PMO does not land in reporters' inboxes. Although the last time we heard about a similar incident was at the end of July, just two weeks after the announcement that Canada would be spending $9 billion (not including the maintenance and servicing costs) on 65 new F-35 figher jets.

Those critical of the move to buy such an expensive, single-engine plane without going to tenders, questioned the timing of the story at the end of July, saying the government was playing up the incident to bolster support for the purchase of the new jets.

Returning to this morning's email...this is how it continued: 

"The Harper Government has ensured our Forces have the tools, the readiness and the personnel to continue to meet any challenges to Canadian sovereignty with a robust response.

This is true today, it will be true tomorrow and it will be true well into the future.

The CF-18 is an incredible aircraft that enables our Forces to meet Russian challenges in our North. That proud tradition will continue after the retirement of the CF-18 fleet as the new, highly capable and technologically-advanced F-35 comes into service. It is the best plane our Government could provide our Forces, and when you are a pilot staring down Russian long range bombers, that's an important fact to remember."

Ah, yes. The F-35. Funny he should mention that. Today, the House of Commons Defence Committee meets to plan how it wants to conduct hearings into the purchase of the planes.