Defence Minister Peter MacKay said opposition parties and the media have tried to warp his words in recent days over comments he made about the cost of sending Canadian war planes and ships to Libya last year.
MacKay told two political talk shows he was “crystal clear” that when he told CBC_Radio in late October that the cost of the mission was less than $50 million.
In that same interview, MacKay told CBC Radio’s The House “there could be more costs that come.”
MacKay said he was asked about the cost of the mission to that point — not about the $106-million estimate of which the Canadian Forces now says MacKay would have been aware and reported to cabinet.
As reported by Postmedia News on Thursday, figures buried in a Defence Department report tabled in the House of Commons on Tuesday put the full price of the Libya mission at nearly $350 million, including more than $100 million in "incremental costs."
Incremental costs are those the Department of National Defence says go beyond what the Canadian Forces would have spent in absence of a mission, such as the cost of moving equipment and people in and out of a war zone and fuel. The $350 million figure includes the cost of salaries for personnel, which would have been paid regardless of a mission.
“The actual cost when I was asked at the time was $50 million. Anything else is an estimate and this was exactly to avoid what we’re doing here. ‘Well you said it was going to be $104 (million) and it turned out to be $105 (million),’” MacKay told Global Television’s The West Block. “We gave it actual costs up to the date of Oct. 13, and I said at that time there would be more costs incurred to bring the equipment back, to wrap up the mission, and that was accurate that was honest, open and truthful.”
“The interventions are expensive,” MacKay told CTV’s Question Period in a separate interview. “In my view, this was money well spent.”
The defence minister has been in damage-control mode over the past few days after questions about what MacKay and the government knew about the cost of the mission were raised in the House of Commons.
The Department of National Defence organized a news briefing Friday afternoon, one week after doing the same to answer questions about cuts to spending on mental health services to military personnel.
“The minister knew the costs would continue to be higher,”_interim Liberal leader Bob Rae told The West Block. “It speaks to an unfortunate lack of straightforward candour.”
The latest questions on spending have only added to the ongoing scrutiny over how the government reports defence spending, including the actual costs of the F-35.
MacKay told CTV’s Question Period reporters and opposition parties were taking part in a “deliberate attempt to confuse the public”_and blame that confusion on the minister.
“What’s happening here is there’s an effort to confuse by members of the opposition and some members of the media in fact because I’ve been crystal clear,”_MacKay told The West Block. “The cost at that time was under $50 million and I said at that time that there was more costs to be calculated and it would be reported to Parliament and that is exactly what I did.”
Canada deployed fighter jets, surveillance and refuelling aircraft and rotated in two navy frigates to participate in the NATO mission in March after the UN approved an arms embargo and no-fly zone over Libya to protect civilians from forces loyal to Libyan strongman Moammar Gadhafi.
Canada extended the original three-month mission in June, then again in September. The Tories had all-party support for the first extension, but the NDP_didn’t support the second extension.
Original Article
Source: ottawa citizen
Author: Jordan Press
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