NDP says Defence deputy minister Fonberg may be in contempt of Parliament for Public Accounts Committee testimony on F-35 fighter jets

PARLIAMENT HILL—The NDP has served notice at a Commons committee inquiry into the government’s controversial $25-billion F-35 fighter jet project that it wants the committee to report on a possible contempt of Parliament because of contradictions between testimony from the deputy minister of the Department of National Defence and Auditor General Michael Ferguson.

In a motion tabled at the Public Accounts Committee hearings into Mr. Ferguson’s politically-charged report released in April on the federal government’s F-35 procurement, the NDP raised the possibility on Tuesday that it believes the deputy minister of National Defence, Rob Fonberg, may be in contempt of Parliament because of his insistence in early testimony that Mr. Ferguson was wrong to tell the committee that Cabinet approved a total budget of $25-billion for the acquisition and operations of 65 F-35 stealth fighter jets two years before Defence Minister Peter MacKay (Central Nova, N.S.) announced the procurement plan in 2010.