“What’s just been uncovered and revealed is political fraud at the core of this government,” said NDP military procurement critic Matthew Kellway. “This isn’t a matter of negligence. This is a matter of knowing the cost estimates and failing to tell Canadians what those cost estimates were and, in fact, approving information going out that was knowingly false.”
The so-called fiscally-sound Conservatives – so lauded for being principled in their economic approach by the tail-wagging national mainstream media – are on target to waste an extra $10 million acquiring expensive military jets that Canada doesn’t need. They are cutting so many services and jobs in the current budget that will probably not amount to $5 billion but yet here they’re overspending by $10 billion. They are quickly becoming very much like the incompetent Christy Clark in BC and they are by no definition of the word principle or fiscally sound. They are INCOMPETENT as this scandal proves!
OTTAWA – Bob Rae is laying the blame for the stealth-fighter fiasco squarely on Stephen Harper – and he’s demanding the Prime Minister’s resignation.
The Interim Liberal Leader says Harper “lied” to Canadians during last May’s election about having contractual protection against skyrocketing costs for the F-35 jets.
And he says Harper deliberately misled Parliament as well.
Rae’s all-out attack on the Prime Minister comes on the heels of a scathing report by Auditor-General Michael Ferguson, who concluded that the Department of National Defence manipulated the process, low-balled cost estimates and kept Parliament in the dark to ensure it got the fighter jets it wanted, without competition.
The Liberal chief says it’s simply not credible for Harper, a reputed control freak who micromanages every aspect of his government, to claim he was unaware of the problems.
The Conservative government would have known that the F-35 was estimated to cost $25 billion, instead of the $16 billion bandied about by the Conservatives, when the Defence Department provided Parliament with a $14.7-billion figure in the weeks before the last federal election, Auditor General Michael Ferguson says.
Auditor General Michael Ferguson refused to say whether he believed the government misled Parliament, but opposition parties said if the statement is true, it raises serious questions about whether the Conservatives intentionally withheld information about the troubled stealth fighter in advance of the election, reported the National Post.
The apparent cost discrepancy relates to the Defence Department’s response to Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page’s controversial report on the F-35 in the weeks leading up to last year’s federal election.
Page had estimated the cost to be $30 billion, but the Defence Department told Parliament and the public that the figure was $14.7 billion. Page subsequently came under fire from the Conservative government for his report.
Ferguson told reporters outside the committee room that the $25-billion figure — which was arrived at by the Defence Department in June 2010 and doesn’t include Canada-specific modifications, ongoing maintenance and other costs — “would have been known throughout government” because they were important for long-term budget planning.
“I can’t speak to sort of an exact date,” he said. “(But) at the point in time, to respond to the Parliamentary Budget Officer’s office, it’s my understanding that the government had that number. That was their internal estimate and they should have used that as their opportunity to come forward with the full cost information.”
Prime Minister Stephen Harper and other members of the federal government refused to answer opposition questions in the House on Thursday about when they knew the Defence Department had estimated the F-35 would cost $25 billion.
Opposition parties, however, said Ferguson’s assertion was particularly troubling, particularly if the government was intentionally lowballing the stealth fighter’s cost in advance of and during the last federal election.
“If they did, then we have a real problem because then that means that they were effectively misleading Parliament for many, many, many months,” said interim Liberal leader Bob Rae. “Misleading the people of Canada throughout the last election.”
“What’s just been uncovered and revealed is political fraud at the core of this government,” said NDP military procurement critic Matthew Kellway. “This isn’t a matter of negligence. This is a matter of knowing the cost estimates and failing to tell Canadians what those cost estimates were and, in fact, approving information going out that was knowingly false.”
The so-called fiscally-sound Conservatives – so lauded for being principled in their economic approach by the tail-wagging national mainstream media – are on target to waste an extra $10 million acquiring expensive military jets that Canada doesn’t need. They are cutting so many services and jobs in the current budget that will probably not amount to $5 billion but yet here they’re overspending by $10 billion. They are quickly becoming very much like the incompetent Christy Clark in BC and they are by no definition of the word principle or fiscally sound. They are INCOMPETENT as this scandal proves!
