The Forum Research poll conducted this week also found that—after a month of government denials that it withheld at least $10-billion worth of costs when the National Defence Department presented estimates to Parliament last year—two-thirds of Canadians said they believe the government did mislead Parliament.
The poll conducted over Tuesday April 24 and Wednesday April 25 found awareness of the F-35 project has grown substantially during the controversy that began on April 3, when Auditor General Michael Ferguson tabled a scathing report on the F-35s in Parliament.
The Forum Research poll found awareness of the F-35 controversy had grown to 77 per cent of those surveyed, compared to 56 per cent in a poll the market research firm conducted last March 30, just before Mr. Ferguson tabled his critical report.
Since then, while the government has said in Parliament it has accepted the auditor general’s conclusions, and has taken steps to bring the F-35 program under control, Defence Minister Peter MacKay (Central Nova, N.S.) and other senior Conservative MPs have challenged the auditor general’s costing figures and claimed operating and personnel costs would have been the same regardless of the selection for an aircraft to replace Canada’s aging fleet of CF-18 jets.
But a decisive majority of Canadians have lined up squarely behind Mr. Ferguson, the Forum Research poll suggests, with 66 per cent of respondents saying they believe the government misled Parliament about the F-35 costs.
Nearly as many Canadians don’t trust Mr. Harper (Calgary-Southwest, Alta.) and his government to handle the project, the survey suggests.
It found 60 per cent of those polled replied no when they were asked “Do you trust Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his government to do what’s best for Canada with respect to these fighter jets?”
The telephone survey of 1,380 Canadians of voting age has a margin of error of 2.4 per cent in 19 times out of 20.
Combined with another part of the survey that found a majority of Canadians also do not trust Mr. Harper and his government to handle environmental issues, Forum Research President Lorne Bozinoff said the prime minister has lost crucial ground over the past month.
“It’s clear Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s personal image has suffered, and he’ll need to rebuild the trust he’s lost before the next election,” said Mr. Bozinoff, who included questions about the F-18 and the environment exclusively for The Hill Times as part of a wider survey of public opinion.
Mr. Ferguson on Thursday again had to rebut the Conservative arguments during a two-hour hearing by the Commons Public Accounts committee, where he pointed out the Department of National Defence itself had included operating, personnel and other costs it did not disclose in its internal estimates for the F-35 program.
The U.S. Department of Defense, which is leading a nine-country consortium taking part in the U.S.-led project, also includes operating and personnel costs as part of its projections, now at $1.5-trillion over a 50-year lifecycle for the acquisition, operation and sustainment of the 2,457 F-35s the U.S. intends to acquire.
Conservative MPs on the House Public Accounts Committee, which has launched a special inquiry into Mr. Ferguson’s F-35 report, spent all their time at Thursday’s hearing attempting to poke holes in the auditor general’s insistence that operation and personnel costs should have been included when National Defence tabled its estimates in March 2011, in response to a report from Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page that pegged the total cost for the F-35 at $29-billion over the aircraft’s lifetime.
Conservative MP Bev Shipley (Lambton-Kent-Middlesex, Ont.) compared the acquisition of the new generation sophisticated fighter jet—which will be the first stealth fighter in the world with 24 million lines of computer program codes to control all of its weapons and flight systems, including a computerized helmet for the pilot to allow 360-degree sight even without light—to buying a car.
“So I’m going to buy a car,” Mr. Shipley said to the auditor general.
“We need to determine the fuel used, we have to determine the number of tires and what those costs would be needed for the life of this vehicle because we’re going to now keep this vehicle for 20 or 25 years, the amount of oil that would be required, the amount of windshield washer fluid that we would need, the repairs that would be required, not only mechanical but maybe there was an accident and we had a ding or two that need to be fixed,” Mr. Shipley said, questioning also whether he would have to compute future costs for potholes if he had to pave his driveway for the car, because he also has a truck, and a two-car garage.
“Do I have to allocate into it now that it’s going in a garage, there’s an allocation of space for that car in my garage there, but I have a two-car garage, than repairs to garage, insurance?” Mr. Shipley asked.
After a moment of consideration, Mr. Ferguson reiterated his point that operations and maintenance—which takes up $1-trillion worth of costs in the U.S. Department of Defence for its F-35s over 50 years—have to be included because Parliament throughout subsequent years will have to vote the approval of funding for the fighter fleet, as well as all other federal government programs.
“The important thing in lifecycle costing is to understand, to get a full picture of what those costs are going to be to operate something like this,” Mr. Ferguson said. “What we identified was that there were some significant things that were missing from the lifecycle costing in this, for example attrition, for example upgrades, and the fact that these aircraft are going to last for 36 years, not just 20 years.”
“So when we raised the issue of lifecycle costing and the fact it was not complete, I don’t believe that we were nitpicking in any way, I think we were saying that there were some significant elements that were missing,” Mr. Ferguson said in response to Mr. Shipley’s question.
The Forum Research survey found support for the F-35 acquisition, only at 21 per cent last March 30 in his first poll on the topic, has dropped to just 17 per cent.
Only 10 per cent of the poll respondents said the government should purchase another fighter jet, while 32 per cent were in favour of an open competition to find a replacement for the CF-18, down from 40 per cent on March 30. The percentage of respondents who want the government to do something else with the money has grown over the month to 17 per cent from 12 per cent, while the percentage of respondents who think Canada does not need new fighter jets has grown to 21 per cent from 15 per cent.
Opposition to the F-35 was highest in Quebec at 89 per cent, while support for the project was highest in Alberta, but still only at 27 per cent.
Only 32 per cent of the respondents on a national basis trusted Mr. Harper and the government to do what’s best for Canada with the fighter planes, with respondents who ranked the Conservative party as their current party preference saving Mr. Harper from even lower levels of trust.
Eighty-one per cent of those who prefer the Conservative party said they trust Mr. Harper and the government with the fighter project
More than 80 per cent of respondents who prefer the Liberal party, NDP and Bloc Québécois said they do not trust the prime minister or the government will do what’s best for Canada with the F-35, with 74 per cent of those who prefer the Green Party saying they don’t trust Mr. Harper and the government will do what's best for Canada.
Original Article
Source: hill times
Author: Tim Naumetz
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