Wow, I'm really impressed with the Canadian patriotism coming through in this discussion. I can't find a thing wrong with that at all.
As to the Arrow, I wouldn't get too upset over it as there is going to be politics in any big ticket weapons platform.
In the 1980's and 1990's Northrop had the F-20 Tigershark which was a great fighter all on its own and would've been perfect for countries with small military budgets as it didn't need as much ground support as did the F-16 (its principle competitor).
It was killed by political wrangling in the Congress that made it legal to export the F-16 but illegal to export the F-20. It was also oppressively difficult to license the F-20 for production in other countries.
The net result was that a remarkable platform was killed for political reasons.
The only conspiracy was with the politicians.
I think the spy story with the Arrow is probably calculated to take heat off of some people who are still residing in Ottawa.
I remember the F-20. I wished we'd have bought some ot replace the old CF-5s we had, or even as a replacement for the CF-18. I also heard that another way they killed it was to offer to some nations that had been refused the F-16 (for security reasons), making leaders there think it was a second rate product, when it fact it wasn't.
CKA Uber 
