Avro Arrow - Canadian Legacy

The push to create the Avro Arrow arose due to the perceived threat of faster and more efficient planes being created in the Soviet Union. At this time in history the Soviet Union was in a Cold War with Western Nations including Canada. Canada’s goal was to create a plane that was more maneuverable and faster in order to beat the Soviets at their own game. This goal was accomplished with the invention of the faster and more advanced Avro Arrow which was more than capable of doing the job. Unfortunately, Canadian Prime Minister John Diefenbaker cancelled the project. The publicly mentioned reasons for this were due to out of control development costs and a decrease in demand for other nation purchases as the USA had developed their own next generation war fighter at the same time. However, the cancellation of the Avro Arrow was a poor decision as it had detrimental effects on Canada. Canadian growth, nationalism, and military were all amongst those institutions affected.

During the period of World War II, Canada had transformed into an industrial based country. Industry was now crucial to Canadian economics which is why the cancellation of the Avro Arrow caused such a large impact on Canadian growth. The development of the Avro Arrow was a major boost to the economy of Canada, not only with its immediate employment increase, it positioned Canada as a global industrial leader and would have led to many more advanced industrial products being produced with Canadian talent. The creator of the project, A.V Roe, was furious when it was cancelled and as noted by the Historica-dominion Institute (2006) “immediately fired his 14,000 employees”. Not only did his employees lose their jobs, but a according to Joan Dixon (2001) a multitude of people lost their jobs that were in the aeronautics industry. This was a huge blow to Canadian aeronautics and as Joan Dixon (2001) explained it had dampening effect on Canada’s ability to attract top notch