Auditor General Michael Ferguson rebuked the Public Works department along with National Defence, in a highly critical report on a chain of F-35 procurement decisions that he said contravened normal procurement policies. This included a Public Works decision to allow National Defence to procure 65 F-35 fighter jets without competing bids from other aircraft manufacturers, while National Defence and the federal Cabinet withheld $10-billion worth of F-35 costs from the public and Parliament.
But Conservative MPs on the Public Accounts Committee moved a motion to end the committee’s inquiry into Mr. Ferguson’s report at an in-camera session of the panel. The government is expected to use its majority to force an end to the hearings and turn the panel toward writing a report to the House before it adjourns for the summer in three weeks.
Liberal MP Gerry Byrne (Humber-St. Barbe-Baie Verte, Nfld.), who last week was battling the NDP as well as the government in a bid to continue the hearings, said Ms. Ambrose’s (Edmonton-Spruce Grove, Alta.) appearance at CANSEC, a defence and security trade show in Ottawa from May 29-30, was even more offensive because the giant U.S. defence supplier that is manufacturing and selling the F-35 to a consortium of nine countries, Lockheed Martin, participated in the event. Senior Lockheed Martin executives from the U.S. and Canada attended Ms. Ambrose’s noon speech.
Ms. Ambrose took observers by surprise at one point in her speech, when she strayed from the prepared text that is posted on her departmental website and expressed frustration with aspects of the government’s procurement system, appearing to pin blame either on her own or other department officials for delays.
“When it comes to procurement, I’m a little tired of being told why something can’t be done,” Canadian Press defence writer Murray Brewster reported Ms. Ambrose as telling her audience of about 1,200 defence contractors, as well as Canadian Forces personnel and sprinkled armed forces representatives from other countries.
“I’ve become tired of all of the duplication and competing agendas,” Ms. Ambrose said. “I am fully aware of all of the internal obstacles to change, but I realize we won’t be able to transform the procurement system overnight.”
Mr. Byrne said Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s (Calgary Southwest, Alta.) office and Mr. MacKay (Central Nova, N.S.) likely vetted Ms. Ambrose’s speech beforehand, yet more reason the two ministers should appear at the Public Accounts Committee before its F-35 inquiry ends.
“With so much at stake, there is no excuse for either of these ministers to be absent from appearing before the committee,” Mr. Byrne said.
“To make such statements in an address to a military hardware convention and then leave the matter hanging while a Parliamentary committee is analyzing a $25-billion example of such failed government policies tests the boundaries of what is reasonable and responsible in a Parliamentary democracy,” he said. “Not to appear is the mark of a cover up.”
Former National Defence assistant deputy minister Alan Williams, who was in charge of procurement and has been at the forefront of criticism of the F-35 acquisition, agreed. Mr. Williams said he was surprised that Ms. Ambrose criticized the procurement system, since she was responsible for it as the F-35 went through its acquisition phases. Contracts have yet to be signed for purchasing the aircraft, and the government has frozen the $9-billion budget for buying the planes. The aircraft will cost another $16-billion to sustain, maintain and operate over 20 years.
“The point is she’s the minister responsible for integrity in the process, that’s her job,” Mr. Williams said. “With regard to her comments, I would say ‘look in the mirror.’ She has not been enforcing, administering, fulfilling her responsibilities, she and her officials.”
Mr. Williams added: “Why ministers and bureaucrats and anybody else that can contribute to this isn’t brought to the committee and questioned and challenged, I think that’s unconscionable.”
NDP MP Matthew Kellway (Beaches-East York, Ont.) also criticized Ms. Ambrose’s appearance at the arms and defence trade show.
“It’s only in the context of speeches outside of the Parliamentary process that the government can get away with blaming procurement mismanagement on process, and clearly there’s a campaign afoot to do so,” Mr. Kellway said.
“The real issue is that of ministerial accountability—and that would have been the issue directly addressed by the Public Accounts Committee with the minister present,” he said. “The minister still has to account for the decision to sole-source this plane made by her department. Process can’t explain away such egregious breaches. That’s something the minister has to answer for.”
Ms. Ambrose's communications director, Michelle Bakos, dismissed the opposition criticism. “These accusations are absolutely ridiculous and unwarranted," she told The Hill Times in an email. "The Minister addressed a conference of 800 stakeholders about leveraging Canada’s military procurement."
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