NDP Leader Tom Mulcair (Outremont, Que.) and interim Liberal Leader Bob Rae (Toronto Centre, Ont.) confronted Prime Minister Stephen Harper (Calgary Soutwest, Alta.) with accusations Associate Defence Minister Julian Fantino (Vaughan, Ont.) and his department were in contempt of Parliament for allegedly misleading Parliament over the cost of the proposed fleet of 65 stealth warplanes, while Liberal and NDP MPs invoked images of the 2011 confrontation over contempt findings that led to the dissolution of Parliament and an election.
The Commons front in the F-35 clash centred on Auditor General Michael Ferguson’s claim, in a report earlier this month on the project, that the Department of National Defence withheld billions of dollars in estimated costs last year when it attempted to refute a report from Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page that estimated the stealth jets would cost up to $29-billion over their lifetime, as opposed to $14.7-billion National Defence and the government were claiming.
Mr. Mulcair focused his attack on a statement Mr. Fantino made in the House during the fallout over Mr. Ferguson’s report that “no money has been spent on this file,” after the government responded to the auditor general by freezing a $9-billion budget the government has set aside for acquiring the jets, with the purchase contract for the first batch set to be signed as early as 2015. The government also promised to establish an “F-35 secretariat” within the Public Works Department to manage the program, which the opposition says is shaping up to be the largest military procurement in Canada’s history.
Mr. Mulcair called Mr. Fantino’s claim no money has been spent “completely and utterly false,” noting the government has already spent at least $335-million on the program, possibly more once all of Canada’s contributions so far to the U.S.-led consortium of countries involved in the project are taken into account.
“The Prime Minister knows this, the Minister of National Defence knows it,” Mr. Mulcair told the Commons in Question Period. “Does the Prime Minister believe that it was acceptable for his minister to mislead Parliament?”
Mr. Harper insisted Mr. Fantino was referring to acquisition alone of the F-35s, not the hundreds of millions of dollars the government has already contributed to development and planning, and Canadian personnel at the projects headquarters in Arlington, Va.
“We said specifically that the minister was referring, and the record is very clear on this, to acquisition costs,” he responded, while at the same time acknowledging the millions spent so far. “There are other costs obviously involved in our budgets that are also accounted for. The government has been expending money on development costs with the strong support not only of the Royal Canadian Air Force but also of the aviation industry based in this country."
As MPs debated a motion Mr. Rae tabled earlier this month alleging the Department of National Defence had violated the privileges of Parliament by misrepresenting the cost of the aircraft, omitting $10-billion worth of lifetime operating and personnel costs, Mr. Rae also invoked images of the 2011 contempt crisis by accusing the government of misleading Parliament.
Mr. Harper acknowledged the auditor general “questioned the reliability and the completeness of information” National Defence provided, but argued the government has already responded by “putting in a process of increased supervision before we in fact spend any money to acquire new aircraft.”
The debate over contempt of Parliament in March 2011 stemmed in part from opposition requests for financial information about the F-35 program, although that aspect fell by the wayside as the showdown continued over opposition allegations the government had refused to disclose full costing for a range of crime bills. Though the government eventually tabled the information at the House Finance Committee, the Procedure and House Affairs Committee found the government in contempt of Parliament for withholding information, forcing the subsequent election.
In the Public Accounts Committee Tuesday, a dramatic ultimatum from NDP MP David Christopherson (Hamilton Centre, Ont.) aforced the Conservatives to back down after they used their clout to defeat a motion that would have called Mr. Ferguson as the first witness in the committee’s inquiry into the F-35.
Mr. Christopherson, the senior MP on the committee, said he would no longer be chair if the government went ahead with its plan to hear from deputy ministers of the departments involved in the F-35 procurement prior to hearing from Mr. Ferguson.
“This is my fourth Parliament on public accounts and I’ve served longer at Public Accounts than any other Member of Parliament sitting right now,” he said. “This is now the second time that a chapter has begun where the auditor general has not been brought in to present their report. I said nothing, it was so loaded with politics, the politics of the previous Parliament, this Parliament, and I let it go as a one-off. But now it’s becoming more than a one-off.”
Mr. Christopherson said the trend not to allow the auditor general to appear first is "dangerous" to the oversight process. “Never before has this committee attempted to deal with a chapter without bringing the author, the auditor general, in to present their findings and to set the stage, and not having the author of the report quite frankly makes no sense, as well as being politically dangerous,” Mr. Christopherson said.
“I want colleagues to know that this will not continue with me as the chair. One way or another, something has to give. This will not continue, at least not with me as a member of this committee, because it’s wrong.”
This prompted Conservative MP Andrew Saxton (North Vancouver, B.C.) to invite the opposition to amend his own motion and change it to call Mr. Ferguson for the next hearing to take place on Thursday.
Original Article
Source: hill times
Author: Tim Naumetz
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