But Liberal and NDP MPs who obtained the special meeting even though Parliament remains on recess this week, told The Hill Timesthey expect Conservative MPs on the committee will use their government majority to force the session in camera to deal with a Liberal witness motion behind closed doors and put the government’s stamp on witnesses it wants.
And, as the committee meeting was being scheduled on Monday, The Hill Times found U.S. Senate records that show the Senate’s Armed Services Committee nearly passed a little-noticed budget motion on the multi-billion-dollar F-35 fighter jet last year to put the joint strike fighter program on “probation” for a year because of skyrocketing costs.
A record of the vote contained in the committee’s budget report to the Senate last June shows the vote on the motion tied at 13-13, halting it in its tracks, with one of the most famous U.S. Senators, Republican and 2008 Republican presidential candidate John McCain (Arizona) voting in favour of the motion and strongly criticizing the F-35 project in an addendum to the report.
Although Sen. McCain, a former U.S. Navy fighter pilot and decorated Vietnam veteran, pinned most of his criticism on the budget bill’s “pork-barrel” projects to garner support in the U.S. Congress, he also complained the committee “rejected my efforts to finally put a stop to the out-of-control cost overruns of the already unaffordable F-35 program.”
The U.S. Government Accountability Office, an investigative arm of the U.S. Congress that releases proactive accountability reports daily, also issued highly critical testimony about F-35 costs and delays to the House of Representatives last March, prior to a scathing report earlier this month that accused Canada’s National Defence Department of failing to disclose $10-billion worth of F-35 costs over the expected lifetime of the stealth fighter jet.
The U.S. government Accountability Office delivered its critical report only four days before Canada’s Associate Minister of Defence (Procurement) Julian Fantino (Vaughan, Ont.) delivered a key speech to Canadian defence industry officials to assure them Canada was in good fiscal and defence shape to weather the storm being experienced by the F-35 early production stages in the U.S.
Liberal MP Gerry Byrne (Humber-St. Barbe-Baie Verte, Nfld.), unaware of the obscure vote the committee took as it considered a massive $671-billion defence budget proposed by U.S. President Barack Obama, said the division on the Senate Armed Services Committee, in retrospect after Canada’s Auditor General Michael Ferguson issued a scathing report on the Canadian government’s management of its role in the troubled U.S. defence project, takes on new significance as Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee prepares for an emergency meeting on the F-35.
“Everything takes on a new light after the auditor general’s report,” Mr. Byrne told The Hill Times.
Mr. Byrne and NDP MP Malcolm Allen (Welland, Ont.) said on Tuesday that the special committee of the Public Accounts Committee offers the opposition a chance to recall Mr. Ferguson as the first witness, to probe him over Defence Minister Peter MacKay’s (Central Nova, N.S.) recent claim that the difference between the government’s view of the F-35 and Mr. Ferguson’s position is little more than a difference in accounting.
Mr. MacKay last week dismissed the auditor general’s point of view that operating and personnel costs—which National Defence estimated in internal documents would total at least $10-billion—should have been made public in March 2011, prior to the federal election campaign. Their inclusion would have taken the costs to nearly $25-billion, instead of the $15-billion the government was claiming publicly.
Mr. MacKay argued the cost of fuel and personnel should not have to be included, and compared the multi-billion-dollar project to a family minivan purchase.
“The minivan is quite interesting actually, because perhaps the minister had a Freudian slip, he may have intended to buy a minivan, but somebody sold him a Lamborghini,” Mr. Allen told The Hill Times.
“He now finds himself, as the auditor general said in his report, with the costing the way they’re doing it, they could find themselves with a plane they wouldn’t have money to put fuel in or pilots in, and they would be sitting on the ground,” Mr. Allen said.
Mr. Allen and Mr. Byrne both said they expect the governing Conservatives will vote to send the committee in camera shortly after it begins, thus avoiding the one public discussion over Mr. Byrne’s proposed witness list.
The Prime Minister’s Office has denied the allegation it plans to reject testimony from bureaucrats in charge of the project.
Andrew MacDougall, communications director to the Prime Minister, recently told The Hill Times “the government plans on welcoming officials to testify at committee.”
“It would be very appropriate to hear from the auditor general,” said Mr. Byrne.
But Mr. Byrne pointed out that the government last fall prevented then auditor general John Wiersema from testifying about a report that was highly critical of the $50-million in federal spending on projects in former Industry Minister Tony Clement’s (Parry Sound-Muskoka, Ont.) riding for the 2010 G8 summit that was held in the region.
“The convention is to call the auditor general first and potentially last, to reply to some of the things that were said to us, but with this government there are no guarantees,” said Mr. Byrne.
Original Article
Source: hill times
Author: Tim Naumetz
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