The Avro Arrow program to design and manufacture supersonic jet fighters in Canada is cancelled by the Diefenbaker government amid much political debate.
John George Diefenbaker (; September 18, 1895 August 16, 1979) was the 13th prime minister of Canada, serving from 1957 to 1963. He was the only Progressive Conservative party leader between 1930 and 1979 to lead the party to an election victory, doing so three times, although only once with a majority of the seats in the House of Commons.
Diefenbaker was born in southwestern Ontario in the small town of Neustadt in 1895. In 1903, his family migrated west to the portion of the North-West Territories which would soon become the province of Saskatchewan. He grew up in the province and was interested in politics from a young age. After service in World War I, Diefenbaker became a noted criminal defence lawyer. He contested elections through the 1920s and 1930s with little success until he was finally elected to the House of Commons in 1940.
Diefenbaker was repeatedly a candidate for the party leadership. He gained that position in 1956, on his third attempt. In 1957, he led the party to its first electoral victory in 27 years; a year later he called a snap election and spearheaded them to one of their greatest triumphs. Diefenbaker appointed the first female minister in Canadian history to his cabinet (Ellen Fairclough), as well as the first Indigenous member of the Senate (James Gladstone). During his six years as prime minister, his government obtained passage of the Canadian Bill of Rights and granted the vote to the First Nations and Inuit peoples. In 1962, Diefenbaker's government eliminated racial discrimination in immigration policy. In foreign policy, his stance against apartheid helped secure the departure of South Africa from the Commonwealth of Nations, but his indecision on whether to accept Bomarc nuclear missiles from the United States led to his government's downfall. Diefenbaker is also remembered for his role in the 1959 cancellation of the Avro Arrow project.
In the 1962 federal election, the Progressive Conservatives narrowly won a minority government before losing power altogether in 1963. Diefenbaker stayed on as party leader, becoming Opposition leader, but his second loss at the polls prompted opponents within the party to force him to a leadership convention in 1967. Diefenbaker stood for re-election as party leader at the last moment, but only attracted minimal support and withdrew. He remained in parliament until his death in 1979, two months after Joe Clark became the first Progressive Conservative prime minister since Diefenbaker. Diefenbaker ranks average in rankings of prime ministers of Canada.
The Avro Canada CF-105 Arrow was a delta-winged interceptor aircraft designed and built by Avro Canada. The CF-105 held the promise of Mach 2 speeds at altitudes exceeding 50,000 feet (15,000 m) and was intended to serve as the Royal Canadian Air Force's (RCAF) primary interceptor into the 1960s and beyond.The Arrow was the culmination of a series of design studies begun in 1953 that examined improved versions of the Avro Canada CF-100 Canuck. After considerable study, the RCAF selected a dramatically more powerful design, and serious development began in March 1955. The aircraft was intended to be built directly from the production line, skipping the traditional hand-built prototype phase. The first Arrow Mk. 1, RL-201, was rolled out to the public on 4 October 1957, the same day as the launch of Sputnik I.
Flight testing began with RL-201 on 25 March 1958, and the design quickly demonstrated excellent handling and overall performance, reaching Mach 1.9 in level flight. Powered by the Pratt & Whitney J75, another three Mk. 1s were completed, RL-202, RL-203 and RL-204. The lighter and more powerful Orenda Iroquois engine was soon ready for testing, and the first Mk 2 with the Iroquois, RL-206, was ready for taxi testing in preparation for flight and acceptance tests by RCAF pilots by early 1959.
On 20 February 1959, Prime Minister of Canada John Diefenbaker abruptly halted the development of both the Arrow and its Iroquois engines before the scheduled project review to evaluate the program could be held. Canada tried to sell the Arrow to the US and Britain, but no agreements were concluded. Two months later the assembly line, tooling, plans, existing airframes, and engines were ordered to be destroyed. The cancellation was the topic of considerable political controversy at the time, and the subsequent destruction of the aircraft in production remains a topic for debate among historians and industry pundits. "This action effectively put Avro out of business and its highly skilled engineering and production personnel scattered ..."