As Defence Minister Peter MacKay (Central Nova, N.S.) on Tuesday ramped up the government’s defence of the project—comparing the multi-billion-dollar acquisition of cutting-edge stealth fighter jets to a family’s acquisition of a mini-van—Liberal MP Gerry Byrne (Humber-St. Barbe-Baie Verte, Nfld.) disclosed the leading Conservative MP on the committee last week tabled a counter motion calling for an inquiry into the F-35 project but made it clear the government does not want public testimony from any of the senior National Defence, Public Works and Industry department officials who are in charge.
“His motion is for one purpose and one purpose only, it’s to stop the witness list that I’ve proposed from being called and it’s to ensure that basically only the ministers will get called and they can run roughshod with the truth as they see fit,” Mr. Byrne told The Hill Times after Mr. MacKay explained the government’s position following a scathing report on the F-35 from Auditor-General Michael Ferguson.
Mr. Ferguson set the government reeling with his first report to Parliament after his appointment last November, saying National Defence withheld information on major components last year when it pegged the cost of the F-35s at $14.7-billion in responding to a report from Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page that put the cost much higher.
The National Defence accounting for the jets, which are experiencing costly delays under the development and production supervision of military supply giant Lockheed Martin in the U.S., included its acquisition and initial fit-up costs of $9-billion but failed to include $6-billion worth of contingency and operating costs and $4.7-billion in personnel costs that brought the internal National Defence estimate to a total cost of $25-billion over at least 20 years.
Following up on a weekend news media blitz in which Mr. MacKay argued National Defence routinely omits operating and personnel costs from its defence procurement estimates, the Defence Minister held a lengthy news conference in Halifax on Tuesday where, although he said the government will cough up the figures Mr. Ferguson said were missing, he also suggested Mr. Ferguson’s position was unreasonable.
“If you went out and bought yourself a new mini-van and you wanted to drive it off the lot and it was going to cost you $20,000, you wouldn’t calculate the gas, the washer fluid and the oil and give yourself a salary to drive it for the next 15 or 20 years,” Mr. Mackay said. “That’s part of a new calculation now.”
Touting a newly established “F-35 secretariat” the government will establish within the Public Works department to take up management of the project under the supervision of deputy ministers from undisclosed government departments, Mr. MacKay also compared the F-35 acquisition to a $25-billion navy shipbuilding project the government announced last year.
“We’ve announced $25-billion to build new ships,” Mr. MacKay said. “That doesn’t include the salary of the sailors and the gasoline that’s going to be in them. If the Auditor General is requesting that figure be part of the all-up costs, we can provide that now.”
But Mr. Byrne pointed out Mr. Ferguson suggested in his report that National Defence officials who were managing the project over the past several years failed to pass their knowledge of skyrocketing costs at delays in the Lockheed Martin development stages—a final complete version of the sophisticated fifth-generation fighter has yet to take off—to senior National Defence commanders or Mr. MacKay.
“The JSF [Joint Strike Fighter] Program has experienced cost increases, schedule delays, and technological difficulties, and has been subject to several major reviews,” Mr. Ferguson’s report says. “Officials from National Defence who participated in the senior decision-making committees of the JSF Program were regularly informed of these problems. Yet in briefing materials from 2006 through 2010 that we have reviewed, neither the Minister nor decision makers in National Defence and central agencies were kept informed of these problems and the associated risks of relying on the F-35 to replace the CF-18 [fighter jet].”
Mr. Byrne’s motion, to be taken up in the Public Accounts Committee when Parliament reconvenes on April 23 after a two-week spring recess, calls for witness testimony from Mr. Ferguson, Mr. Page and these senior officials from National Defence, Public Works and Industry Canada: Dan Ross, assistant deputy minister (materiel), National Defence; Lieutenant General André Deschamps, chief of the air staff, National Defence; Michael J. Slack, the F-35 project manager and director of continental materiel cooperation, National Defence; Colonel D.C. Burt, director, manager of New Generation Fighter Capability, National Defence; Tim Ring, assistant deputy minister, acquisitions branch, Public Works and Government Services Canada; Johanne Provencher, director general, defence and major projects directorate, Public Works and Government Services Canada; Richard Dicerni, deputy minister, Industry Canada; and Craig Morris, deputy director, F-35 industrial participation, Industry Canada.
Mr. Byrne said a motion tabled by Conservative MP Andrew Saxton (North Vancouver, B.C.), Parliamentary Secretary to Treasury Board President Tony Clement (Parry Sound-Muskoka, Ont.), calls for hearings into Mr. Ferguson’s report, but does not include the names of any witnesses, as Mr. Byrne’s does.
Mr. Byrne said Mr. Saxton made it clear during an in-camera discussion of his motion after Mr. Ferguson appeared at the committee that the government will allow only the main Cabinet ministers involved—Mr. MacKay, Public Works Minister Rona Ambrose (Edmonton-Spruce Grove, Alta.,), Associate Defence Minister Julian Fantino (Vaughan, Ont.) and Industry Minister Christian Paradis (Mégantic-L’Éerable, Que.)—to show up and testify.
“We brought it forward and it became abundantly clear, I’m not holding back on this whatsoever, it became abundantly clear that the Conservatives have no intention of allowing those witnesses from ever gracing our committee room, because they are dangerous and they [the ministers and government] know it,” said Mr. Byrne.
The chief spokesperson for Prime Minister Stephen Harper (Calgary Southwest, Alta.) said the government does not want to restrict the committee witness list for hearings on the F-35 report and called Mr. Byrne's allegation and The Hill Times' story "100 per cent incorrect."
"At no time was Saxton calling ministers. That is a complete fabrication from Byrne. Had you bothered to ask, you would have learned that the government plans on welcoming officials to testify at committee," Andrew MacDougall, Mr. Harper's communications director, said late last night in an email to The Hill Times. "At any rate, you needn't have relied on Mr. Byrne to speak to the government's plans. Mr. Saxton's motion was public for all to see."
Mr. MacDougall pointed out the government motion tabled after Mr. Byrne's motion calls for a committee meeting on April 24 to decide on the study and to strike a witness list. The motion, however, does not include proposed witness names and would likely be held in camera under past Commons committee practice.
NDP MP Matthew Kellway (Beaches-East York, Ont.) criticized Mr. MacKay’s position on the costs his department excluded from the F-35 cost projections, arguing that the maintenance and operational costs of the sophisticated F-35 will be significantly higher than the costs of Canada’s aging CF-18 fighter jets.
“MacKay is missing the point,” Mr. Kellway told The Hill Times. We have independent officers of Parliament to tell us and tell Canadians how to do these things properly and to identify when mistakes have been made. And one of those officers, the Parliamentary Budget Officer, advised them some time ago that they weren’t costing the F-35 correctly, and now they’ve had another independent officer of Parliament, the auditor general, advise them again. And yet this minister seems to want to take both of these guys on and be providing lessons and tutorials to these independent officers of Parliament how to do their jobs properly. I don’t think Canadians are going to buy that.”
Liberal MP John McKay (Scarborough-Guildwood, Ont.) also said Mr. MacKay is out of step.
“On the one hand you have the auditor general, the Parliamentary Budget Officer, the [U.S.] Congressional office and a number of allies and generally accepted accounting principles; and you have Peter MacKay and his parallel universe on the other side,” Mr. McKay told The Hill Times.
Original Article
Source: hill times
Author: Tim Naumetz
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