NDP MP Malcolm Allen (Welland, Ont.), who mounted the party’s filibuster through several meetings that were held in-camera at the government’s insistence, said the official opposition is satisfied it aired unofficial testimony in August from critics of the program, who spoke at a “roundtable” discussion of the F-35 procurement in a Centre Block committee room.
“We actually had the roundtable in the summer and invited witnesses that they refused, so we’ve heard from those witnesses now, that information is now out in the public,” Mr. Allen told The Hill Times.
“It’s now information that we all now have, and so we’ve shone the light, from a structural perspective, as far as the actual structure of the committee is concerned, in some dark corners, and we’ll continue to do it even though the committee might be doing something else,” Mr. Allen said. “There is still work to be done on the file, Public Works has it, there are still opportunities to do those things and question the government. We’re still asking questions on the F-35s, there is still more to do. We’ll continue to do it. There are other avenues to do those things.”
The inquiry was to come to a halt in a closed-door meeting of the Commons Public Accounts Committee today after the NDP gave up a one-MP filibuster it had mounted for several weeks in May and June after the government first served notice that the sessions would end after only eight hours of hearings and a handful of government-approved witnesses.
But today’s meeting, along with a scheduled meeting of another House committee chaired by the NDP, was cancelled at the last minute because of committee membership changes, and the official end of the inquiry will come next week.
Liberal MP Gerry Byrne (Humber-St. Barbe-Baie Verte, Nfld.) opposed the decision to end the hearings, noting that even more questions are arising from measures the government has taken since Mr. Ferguson’s report was released in April.
The most controversial decision has been the government’s selection of an accounting firm to review DND’s F-35 cost estimates. It’s the Canadian subsidiary of an accounting firm that serves as the official auditor for a British aerospace company that is part of the F-35 project.
“I think it’s disgusting, there are so many new developments; there are so many witnesses to be heard,” Mr. Byrne told The Hill Times.
At the end of the hearings on May 15, the committee was left hanging when Mr. Ferguson, whose report accused DND of withholding $10-billion worth of operating costs for the F-35s in a 2011 report to Parliament, rejected suggestions from government and National Defence officials that some statements he had made were incorrect.
“I would like to state, for the record, that we stand behind all of the facts presented in the chapter, and note that these facts were accepted by the department,” were Mr. Ferguson’s last words to the committee on May 15, after the government challenged his statement that Cabinet had approved a budget for the F-35 acquisition as early as 2008, two years before Defence Minister Peter MacKay (Central Nova, N.S.) announced the plan in July, 2010.
The government has since frozen a $9-billion acquisition budget for the aircraft and has established a secretariat within the Public Works and Government Services Department to take over management of the project, review the work that has been done already, validate costs in a report to be tabled in the Commons in either late November or early December, and compile other information that will fulfill the government’s promise to consider “all options” as it completes its plan to acquire new fighter jets that will replace Canada’s aging fleet of Boeing F-18 fighters.
The measures include plans to hire another outside consultant to review “all steps taken to date” in the acquisition, but Public Works has given conflicting signals about whether that review will include a review of the work already scrutinized by Mr. Ferguson.
Conservative MP Andrew Saxton (Vancouver North, B.C.) told The Hill Times he could not comment on the Public Accounts Committee proceedings because they remain in-camera.
“We’re still in-camera, all I can say is it looks like the MPs have all come back with a spirit of congeniality and cooperation and we’re looking forward to getting the work done that the committee is supposed to do,” said Mr. Saxton, Parliamentary secretary to Mr. MacKay.
The opposition parties are expected to submit dissenting reports after the in-camera meeting today.
Original Article
Source: hill times
Author: TIM NAUMETZ
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