- What Else Is Harper Hiding From Us - Inquiring Canadians Want To Know

Posted: 10:30am, :10-:35am, 10:43am, 10:50,11:07am, March 18th 2011
(The Toronto Sun should allow more character's per post)
Defence department says budget watchdog wrong on F-35 costs, David Akin, Parliamentary Bureau Chief, Toronto Sun, March 17, 2011 8:06pm
http://www.torontosun.com/news/canada/2011/03/17/17660836.html#/news/canada/2011/03/17/pf-17660836.html

It is Disingenuous of Harper to Withhold Information then Attack the PBO's Report on The F-35 Purchase

There are a few basic strategies here that Harper and the DND are employing.

- don't reveal the information, then when someone makes an estimate accuse them of "pulling numbers out of thin air"

If you are not going to release the information then how can it lie in your mouth to attack someone who makes an estimates.

If you don't like the estimate, simply solution is release all the information and let people do another estimate.

It is futile to make such recommendation and if the info were released the new estimates are probably more likely to be even higher, than lower.

- look for small things in the estimates, very vocally attack them and non-sequitur to 'therefore the whole report is faulty'.

To suggest that the Report is faulty because there is an alleged adding mistake (and it has not been pointed out here where this is) of $1 billion in a $29 billion estimate is disingenuous. Intrinsic in the word estimate is that the end result is not exact. To be off by $1 billion, whatever the source, is actually pretty good.

When one puts the PBO's Report in the context of the Auditor General's warning last October, as well as other analyses of the the F-35 purchase, the PBO's estimates are not out of wack, by any stretch.

"Fraser’s findings from her audit of the $11-billion helicopter deals couldn’t be more disturbing. She said DND officials held back crucial information about the likely escalation in the cost of 28 Cyclone and 15 Chinook choppers, which led to Treasury Board approving the purchases based on off-the-shelf cost estimates that were ridiculously optimistic.

And Fraser drew a rough parallel between the helicopter fiasco and the planned procurement, announced last June July, of 65 F-35 fighter jets for an estimated $9 billion, plus another perhaps $7 billion in maintenance costs. “I hope no one is assessing [the F-35 procurement] as low risk,” she said today."
(MacLean's, 26 Oct.'10)

and,

"Winslow Wheeler, the director of the Straus Military Reform Project at the Center For Defense
Information in Washington, D.C., releases written testimony he was asked to give to the House of
Commons Standing Committee on National Defence:

"'I can guarantee to you, however, that the unit cost Canada will pay for a complete, operational F-
35A will be well in excess of $70 million even taking into account whatever exclusion of American
costs to develop the aircraft your government may be able to negotiate.

the real question is what multiple of CAD$70 million will Canada have to pay? I
do not believe it unreasonable to expect a multiplication factor of two."

Cost of Operating the aircraft: ' . . . It would not be unreasonable to expect the flying hour costs to double.'"
(22 Jan.'11, Toronto Sun)

Oh, and by the way, did I mention:

Why is it the DND is saying

"Ottawa has committed approximately $9 billion to the acquisition of 65 F-35 aircraft"
http://www.journal.forces.gc.ca/vol10/no4/14-shadwick-eng.asp

anyway, It's not a done deal, is it.

What else is Harper hiding from us.

Lloyd MacILquham cicblog.com/comments.html