Commons probe of F-35 fighter jet costs set to start

OTTAWA—Lawmakers will begin next week an investigation into a damning auditor’s report that showed the full costs of a proposed $25-billion fighter jet purchase was hidden from the public.

But already, opposition members of Parliament charge that the Conservatives on the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee are prepared to rig the hearings so that damaging evidence about what the government knew about the F-35 price tag and when it was known stays under wraps.

“This is a cover-up in the making,” said Liberal MP Gerry Byrne, following a two-hour meeting marked by procedural wrangling over when to begin hearing from key witnesses and even whether a gathering to select witnesses would be held in public or behind closed doors.

The government ultimately used their majority on the committee to ensure that a witness list — likely to include Auditor General Michael Ferguson, Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page and senior officials in the defence department and in other departments — is drafted next Tuesday in a private session ahead of the first public testimony on the auditor’s report next Thursday.

“There’s a wealth of information out there,” said NDP MP Malcom Allen. “It’s a question of how quickly can we ascertain it. We can do it quickly at Public Accounts if they allow the witness list that we have before them.”

In his maiden report earlier this month, Ferguson found that the defence department has been hiding the full life-cycle costs of the Lockheed Martin F-35 jet for at least two years, instead telling the public and Parliament that the fleet of replacement jets will only cost $15 billion.

The Tories maintain the differing price tags are a simple accounting disagreement and that the cost presented by Ferguson, Page and others is akin to adding up the price of total lifetime costs for gas, insurance and windshield washer fluid when buying an automobile.

Byrne said the Conservatives are pinning the blame for the F-35 costs on bureaucrats despite the auditor general stating that the $25-billion figure “was known to the government” as early as June 2010.

“If it flowed to cabinet ministers, it flowed to the prime minister,” Byrne said after Thursday’s meeting. “(The prime minister is) just as guilty. He knew what was going on here and that’s what we intend to prove.”

Conservative committee members denied they were attempting to delay or obstruct the F-35 hearings.

“We don’t want to hold this thing up, contrary to what has been said earlier. We want to move forward on it because we want clarification of this study that the auditor general has brought forward on the F-35s,” said Conservative MP Bev Shipley.

The NDP’s Allen said he remains doubtful of the government’s intentions.

“I think they’re serious to the point of saying ‘We’ll hold some meetings.’ I’m not as confident that they’re dead serious about getting to the bottom of it.”

Original Article
Source: Star
Author: Allan Woods