Grit leader Rae accuses feds of lying about F-35s

PARLIAMENT HILL—Internal government cost forecasts for the F-35 stealth fighter jets and information disclosed at a Commons inquiry into Auditor General Michael Ferguson’s scathing report on the project shows the government lied to Canadians before and during last year’s federal election, interim Liberal Leader Bob Rae said Thursday.

Mr. Rae (Toronto Centre, Ont.) made the allegation after he took the unusual step for a party leader of stepping in at the inquiry by the House Public Accounts Committee, to grill the top bureaucrat at the Department of National Defence over a $10-billion discrepancy between what the government claimed before and during the 2011 election to be the full cost of an acquisition of 65 F-35 stealth jets National Defence continues to push as its selection for a new jet to replace Canada’s aging fleet.

Mr. Rae, addressing his questions to the deputy minister of National Defence, Robert Fonberg, pressed Mr. Fonberg on how it came about that in March 2011, as the government and National Defence were publicly claiming the project would cost a total of $14.7-billion over 20 years, including acquisition and maintenance, National Defence provided Cabinet with an estimated $25.1-billion in costs over the same 20-year period.

Mr. Fonberg, who had to explain to the committee Thursday how National Defence, following Mr. Ferguson’s report, retroactively amended a June 2011 report to Parliament on the status of the F-35 project because it specified the program was at a much later date in the decision-making process of Cabinet then it actually was at the time.

Mr. Ferguson's report states the project is still in the "option analysis" phase, but it also points out that the Harper government announced in July, 2010, that it had made a decision to acquire the F-35s.

Mr. Fonberg, who earlier this week told the committee Prime Minister Stephen Harper (Calgary Southwest, Alta.) and his Cabinet made the decision to report the lower $14.7-billion figure to Parliament, excluding operating and personnel costs for the F-35, did not respond directly to Mr.  Rae, who also chided National Defence and the government for attacking Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page at the same time last year for publishing forecasts that were more in line with the secret government estimate.

At the time in March 2011, the F-35 cost forecasts the government had refused to disclose to the Commons Finance Committee were part of opposition allegations the government was in contempt of Parliament that were central to the defeat of the minority Conservative government and the May 2 election that followed.

“The contempt that was at stake that led to the election of 2011, that contempt continues,” Mr. Rae said after his committee appearance.

“They lied to the people of Canada before the election and they lied to them during the election,” Mr. Rae said.

Mr. Page, who was grilled aggressively by Conservative MPs at the Public Accounts Committee hearing, later said the government refusal to include operating costs in its public estimate of how much the sophisticated jets, still under testing and development in the U.S., will eventually cost.

A recent U.S. Department of Defense estimate of the operating cost for the F-35s put it 42 per cent above the U.S. F-16 fighter jets, the backbone of the U.S. Air Force fleet that the F-35s will replace. In a report to Congress, the department predicted the F-35s, the same version that National Defence intends to buy, will cost $32,000 per flying hour, including all maintenance and operating expenses, compared to $22,000 per flying hour for the F-16s.

“The real issue becomes we need to get the full lifecycle costs, including operating and support, because we know these planes are expensive to fly, more expensive than certainly the F-18 [Canada’s current fighter jets],” Mr. Page told reporters after his committee appearance.

He said the latest U.S. military report to Congress indicates the estimated cost for the F-35 version National Defence intends to acquire has climbed to at least $120-million, compared to a $75-million estimate National Defence made in 2010, the last estimate the department has released publicly, during the March, 2011, uproar over contempt in Parliament.

“The numbers that are coming out of the latest SAR [U.S. Defense Department Selected Acquisition Report] is $138-million per [aircraft], this cuts across all variants, probably something in the $120 and $125 [million-dollar range],” Mr. Page said.

Original Article
Source: hill times
Author: Tim Naumetz