The Auditor-General has released a scathing report today finding that the Canadian military, and the uniform fetishists also known as the Conservative Party of Canada (our governing party at the federal level) deliberately low-balled the cost of the new procurement program for fighter jets to the tune of $10 billion, and then deliberately lied to Parliament about it.
First, a bit of background. Canada’s current fleet of fighter jets is composed entirely of a variant on the F/A-18 Hornet designated the CF-18, all of which entered service between 1982 and 1988. They are going to be reaching the end of their anticipated service lives within five to eight years. The jets therefore need to be replaced if Canada is to continue having an air force.
Last year, the Department of National Defence (DND) decided that, without putting the contract out to tender, the aircraft chosen to replace the CF-18 would be the F-35 Lightning II, the product of the Joint Strike Fighter program, to which Canada was a contributing member state.
When this purchase decision was announced, the government declared that DND had conducted an analysis of the needs of the Royal Canadian Air Force in terms of a replacement fighter for the CF-18, and that only the F-35 would fit the bill. They also announced that the cost of the procurement of 65 jets and spare parts would be $9 billion. It turns out that none of that was true.
The Auditor-General released a report yesterday in which he found that:
1) DND never conducted a review of what Canada needed in its next fighter jet;
2) DND just had a hard-on for the F-35 and never looked at whether it was the right jet for Canada or whether any other jet could do the job;
3) DND deliberately knocked $10 billion off what they knew it would cost to purchase the jets and parts, and they omitted the lifetime maintenance costs from the larger $19 billion number; and
4) Ministers in the government knew this, and lied to the House of Commons and Commons committees about it anyhow.
All of this comes after the Conservatives spent the last year telling anyone who would listen that critics of the decision to purchase the F-35 were borderline treasonous and “hated the troops”. The critics of the decision being the opposition parties and the Parliamentary Budget Officer (the equivalent to the Congressional Budget Office). The PBO spent the last year screaming to high heaven that the numbers were way off, and that the ultimate cost would be more like $30 billion. The government response (despite the fact that they appointed him to his office) was that he is incompetent and didn’t know what he was talking about.
It’s going to be very interesting to see where this goes from here. This is another in a series of examples of the Conservatives being caught lying about how much their plans are going to cost, like when they were actually found to be in contempt of Parliament last year for lying about how much their new plan to throw ALL THE PEOPLE in jail was going to cost. I’m hopeful that this government has finally entered its listless, complacent and blatantly corrupt phase, which all long-lived governments seem to go through up here, and usually immediately precedes being voted out of office. Sadly, we have to wait until 2015 for our next election.
Information via CBC
Picture via fotopedia
