Democracy Gone Astray

Democracy, being a human construct, needs to be thought of as directionality rather than an object. As such, to understand it requires not so much a description of existing structures and/or other related phenomena but a declaration of intentionality.
This blog aims at creating labeled lists of published infringements of such intentionality, of points in time where democracy strays from its intended directionality. In addition to outright infringements, this blog also collects important contemporary information and/or discussions that impact our socio-political landscape.

All the posts here were published in the electronic media – main-stream as well as fringe, and maintain links to the original texts.

[NOTE: Due to changes I haven't caught on time in the blogging software, all of the 'Original Article' links were nullified between September 11, 2012 and December 11, 2012. My apologies.]

Friday, September 07, 2012

Tories hire KPMG to conduct review of F-35 costs

Five months after it promised to conduct an independent review of controversial cost projections for F-35 fighter jets, the Harper government has finally hired accounting firm KPMG to do the job.

The Conservatives say they'll release the findings sometime this fall during an annual National Defence update to Parliament.

The Harper government, which has sold itself as competent stewards of public money, was heavily embarrassed this spring when Auditor General said the government had lowballed the full cost of buying costly F-35 Lightning fighter jets.

The total bill, he concluded, was $25-billion rather than $16-billion.

KPMG's job will include:

    Reviewing the National Defence acquisition and sustainment project assumptions for replacing Canada's aging CF-18 jets.
    Developing a framework to assess the life-cycle cost estimate of a fleet of 65 F-35 fighters throughout its expected operational life.

Original Article
Source: the globe and mail
Author: Steven Chase

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