The Hill Times was told of the Conservative refusal to include evidence at the House Public Accounts Committee from Mr. Page, who sounded alarm bells about undisclosed costs in the planned $25-billion F-35 acquisition just prior to the 2011 federal election, after the panel spent its seventh straight meeting apparently deadlocked over what to report from the eight hours of evidence it heard before the government ended the F-35 hearings in June.
“They’re writing him out of the report,” The Hill Times was told, following the Public Accounts Committee’s in-camera meeting on Wednesday, where opposition and government MPs continued to go over a draft report prepared by independent analysts from the Library of Parliament and committee staff.
When asked about the committee’s treatment of Mr. Page’s testimony, Conservative MP Andrew Saxton (Vancouver North, B.C.) said, “I can’t comment on what went on in an in-camera meeting.”
Mr. Page locked horns with the government over F-35 costs and its decision to withhold billions of dollars in operating costs from Parliament and the public.
He has also threatened to take the government to Federal Court over its initial refusal to provide his office with departmental information indicating the areas in which the government plans to cut thousands of public services jobs to meet a budget promise of $5.2-billion in spending cuts over the next three years.
Meanwhile, an independent audit the government has commissioned to review much of the same ground in the controversial acquisition that Mr. Ferguson has already covered in his report last April, prompted an NDP MP to say Wednesday that he is concerned the majority-governing Conservatives may be planning to challenge Mr. Ferguson in the same way it has fought with Mr. Page over the past three years on a range of issues, including the F-35 costs.
The Public Works department last Friday posted a request for proposals on Merx, the government contracting website, seeking bids from private sector audit firms for an independent review of the decisions and steps taken in the F-35 acquisition up to last June. Some of the work requirements set out in the bid request has prompted a leading critic of the F-35 project and opposition MPs to accuse the government of secretly planning to justify continuance of the plan to buy a fleet of 65 F-35 warplanes, despite delays and spiraling costs at the aircraft’s main Lockheed Martin Corp. production plant in Fort Worth, Texas.
“The goal of this review is to determine whether the shortcomings in the acquisition process identified by the auditor general in his report have been addressed, and if not to propose corrective action,” the request for bids states. “This review will also confirm whether the steps taken, up to June 2012, in the acquisition process, were in accordance with the applicable government policies, procedures and regulations.”
The document also states: “Overall, the review will assess whether the steps taken and the documentation produced were complete, appropriate, properly documented and approved by the correct approval authority.”
“It is just absurd,” Liberal MP John McKay (Scarborough-Guildwood, Ont.) told The Hill Times on Wednesday.
“The auditor general has given his opinion. He’s been very articulate and if they haven’t learned lessons from what the auditor general has actually said, then they clearly are in the slow learner’s category,” Mr. McKay said. “Somehow the PBO, from a different data set, came to the same conclusion. If they didn’t learn any lessons from the PBO, then they should be put back a grade.”
NDP MP Malcolm Allen (Welland, Ont.), who sits on the House Public Accounts Committee, said he is concerned the government may be planning to take on Mr. Ferguson in the same way it has dealt with Mr. Page’s critical reports to Parliament.
“I would hope they don’t follow the same path that they did with the PBO, where they have clearly criticized the PBO. They have done that for a long period of time,” Mr. Allen said.
“I hope at the end of the day, this government isn’t headed down a path of attacking an independent officer of Parliament, including the auditor general, who has a huge amount of credibility, and that department, period; not just him, as an individual. He does, as well, obviously, as an individual. I would hope they are not headed down that path, when folks disagree with them they decide to do what they did to the PBO,” he said.
The Public Works Department has told The Hill Times the review is not intended to challenge Mr. Ferguson’s findings, and that the request for bids states the outside review “should not question” Mr. Ferguson’s findings.
Alan Williams, a former head of procurement at National Defence who has criticized the F-35 acquisition and has been calling for a competition to replace Canada's aging fleet of fighter jets, said he was surprised the Conservatives would be intent on keeping evidence from Mr. Page out of the final committee report.
“The government continues to undermine its credibility,” Mr. Williams told The Hill Times. “Does it really expect Canadians to accept a report that excludes information from the Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer? Ignoring the truth won't make it go away.”
Original Article
Source: hill times
Author: Tim Naumetz
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