The Hill Times has learned the “key decision-making body” to oversee a new project management secretariat the government is establishing in response to Mr. Ferguson’s report on the F-35s project last month will be chaired by the deputy minister of Public Works, with deputy ministers from National Defence and Industry Canada, the two other lead departments in the controversial project for the past six years, also forming the “core membership” of the oversight group.
Officials from Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s (Calgary Southwest, Alta.) Cabinet support department, the Privy Council Office, the Finance Department, and a secretariat that supports the Treasury Board committee of Cabinet will be “ex officio” members of the supervisory panel, along with “independent” members from outside the public service, the Public Works department told The Hill Times.
After the department released the details, Mr. Ferguson was making his second appearance at a Commons Public Accounts Committee inquiry into his report on Tuesday, after senior Public Works and National Defence officials in charge of the aircraft acquisition contradicted some of Mr. Ferguson’s positions in earlier appearances.
The auditor general stuck firmly to his view that National Defence withheld the full costs of the F-35 project last year in a report to Parliament, as well as his statement that Cabinet had approved funding for the aircraft as early as 2008.
"We presented the chapter, the information is in that report, we went through our normal process of checking the facts, they agreed with the facts, we stand by the facts, and so I don't think there's any more clarification," Mr. Ferguson told reporters after the hearing.
"We laid out what happened through 2008 and 2010, in 2008 there was a defence [Canada First] strategy that talked about the $9-billion, they hen rolled that into their own plan, they established their budget for maintenance of $16-billion [and] that rolled into the documentation that moved to Cabinet in 2010," he said.
While the government appears to have established a framework for managing the fighter jets project, the Public Works response to a request for information about the management group suggested major decisions remain.
“Terms of reference are being developed; when they are finalized they will be made public,” Public Works media relations officer Sébastien Bois told The Hill Times in an email. “The terms of reference will establish a work plan to address the shortcomings identified in the auditor-general’s report.”
The government has promised to table annual forecast costs for its plan to buy 65 F-35 fighters, based on yearly estimates provided by the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter Program Office in Washington, D.C., within 60 days of receiving cost estimates from the program.
Canadian defence officials received the latest estimates early this month, in formal briefings on May 1 and May 2. But with Public Works indicating more work to be done establishing the ground rules for the new secretariat, it is unclear whether the latest estimates will be produced before Parliament adjourns for its summer recess on June 22.
Liberal MP Gerry Byrne (Humber-St. Barbe-Baie Verte, Nfld.) told The Hill Times following the committee hearing that even the month-and-a-half delay to this point is unacceptable.
"It's a delay tactic," Mr. Byrne said. "This information is actually quite available. Canada is just one of nine members of the consortium. The aircraft may not be off the shelf, but the numbers should be. What's available for the costing to Britain, notwithstanding the country by country upgrades, the cost is the cost, and all members of the consortium are aware of it," he said.
Opposition MPs said they suspect the government will delay establishment of the secretariat, through which National Defence must table the new costing estimates.
"At the place they're going at, they aren't going to get it done on time," said NDP MP Malcolm Allen (Welland, Ont.). "At the end of the day, why would we trust them? They've got the same cast of characters that did this to start with."
Based on costs figures in the latest U.S. estimates, which the U.S. Department of Defense provided to Congress on March 29, Public Works has acknowledged the cost of the F-35 version the government has said it will acquire has increased to $85-million per aircraft from the $75-million price tag when Defence Minister Peter MacKay (Central Nova, N.S.) announced the acquisition in July, 2010.
Even more significantly, the U.S. report exposed soaring costs now expected for the sustainment of the sophisticated jets during their lifetime—a key aspect of Mr. Ferguson’s report that was central to his claim of undisclosed costs.
The U.S. forecasts the F-35 version Canada has selected will cost $32,000 per flying hour to sustain and operate, including personnel, maintenance and upgrades, compared to $21,000 per flying hour for current U.S. fighters. Support and sustainment costs are expected to be 90 per cent higher than conventional fighters. National Defence has until now estimated support and sustainment costs to be $5.7-billion for Canada’s F-35s over only 20 years, at least 10 years less than the aircraft’s expected lifetime.
As part of the government’s response to Mr. Ferguson’s report, which found that National Defence failed to “exercise due diligence” in the $25-billion project, the committee will oversee another panel of assistant deputy ministers, likely from the same departments, that will be in charge of a new secretariat within Public Works that will take over hands-on management from National Defence.
But—even though the government has changed the name of the working group to the National Fighter Procurement Secretariat after initially dubbing it the F-35 Secretariat when it outlined the new plan the same day Mr. Ferguson tabled his report in Parliament—opposition MPs say Mr. Harper and his Cabinet have no intention of dropping out of the F-35 project and holding new competition to replace Canada’s aging CF-18 fighter jets.
“It’s ultimately under the control it would seem of the Prime Minister anyway,” said NDP MP Mathew Kellway (Beaches-East York, Ont.)
“Right from the start it looked like a farce, when they called it the F-35 Secretariat,” Mr. Kellway told The Hill Times.“They tried to disguise the farce be renaming it, but it is what it is, it is a damage control secretariat, because this thing is in trouble. It’s causing the government nightmares and they’re looking to re-package it, but at the end of the day, they will do what the government wants to do, which is procure the F-35.”
Liberal MP John McKay (Scarborough-Guildwood, Ont.) said the name change for the secretariat is a ploy, and the government has no intention of changing the F-35 trajectory.
“This government has no back-up lights,” Mr. McKay said.
Original Article
Source: hill times
Author: Tim Naumetz
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