In the F-35 fiasco, truth is the first casualty

They don’t call the F-35 a “stealth” fighter for nothing. Years after Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative government identified the warplane as the only viable one for Canada, and shouted down critics who dared to say otherwise, Canadians still haven’t got a clue as to the true cost of each plane. We don’t know how many we can afford. We don’t even know whether we’ll buy it at all. We’re flying blind.

The F-35 may prove one day to be the most fearsome bird in the sky, but it is also proving to be a bit too stealthy, in too many ways.

A plane the Conservatives originally said would cost $9 billion may end up costing $40 billion over its life cycle, a sticker shock that has sent the Harper government into damage control, scrambling to consider cheaper options.

Defence Minister Peter MacKay has been fatally discredited by his obtuse handling of this file to replace our aging CF-18 fighters. From the get-go, the Tories and the military kept Parliament and the public in the dark, issued slippery, lowball cost estimates, played down development problems and tried to discredit anyone who doubted that the F-35 was the only plane worth considering. On Friday, Parliament rang with calls for MacKay to resign.

Costing the F-35 is a tricky, politicized business. Initially, the Tories publicly pegged the deal at $9 billion, or $16 billion over the life of the jets. But it took Auditor General Michael Ferguson to put the true “full life-cycle cost” at $25 billion over 20 years. That includes the initial price tag plus upgrades, weapons, repairs, fuel and aircrew salaries. Ottawa is now sitting on a KPMG study that reportedly pegs it at $40 billion over 42 years. Stung by the truth, the Tories have been dragged kicking and screaming to where they should have been years ago: kicking the tires on Boeing’s Super Hornet, the Eurofighter Typhoon and other warplanes, instead of sole-sourcing a new plane.

Put simply, Canada’s 65 basic F-35s — the minimum the air force says it needs — were supposed to roll off the Lockheed Martin line for $5 billion, or $75 million apiece. The New York Times reports the average price is almost twice that — $137 million. While interoperability with the American military is a key consideration, Ottawa may have to shell out $4 billion more, or pare our order in half, along with the air force. Our allies face the same pressure.

However you work the bottom line, the F-35 has become a pricey political fiasco. Canadians deserve better, going forward. We need a defence minister with the authority to speak to the costs and trade-offs. We need an apples-to-apples comparison of the unit costs, plus the full life-cycle costs, of each of the planes being considered. And we need to know what benefits manufacturers are prepared to offer to get our business.

So far, the only thing the F-35 has shot down is the Harper government’s credibility. And they’re not out of the line of fire yet.

Original Article
Source: the star
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