OTTAWA, Ont. — The Harper government froze spending Tuesday on the multi-billion-dollar plan to buy new jet fighters minutes after the auditor general produced a withering report accusing the Department of National Defence of keeping Parliament in the dark about spiralling problems with the F-35 purchase.
The government also announced it would take away DND’s ability to buy new weapons systems and hand it to Public Works — all in an effort to shield itself from the ensuing assault in the House of Commons that followed the release of the report by new Auditor General Michael Ferguson.
The Defence Department faced wide-ranging scorn over its management of the a plan to buy 65 new F-35 radar-evading stealth fighters for what the military initially insisted would cost $9 billion. The cost of the purchase, which is already the largest single purchase of military hardware in Canadian history, will almost certainly be far higher than originally budgeted, Ferguson said.
He added Public Works should have done a better job of overseeing the purchase, but Ferguson was particularly scathing about DND’s failure to come clean on potential problems with buying the F-35.
“Briefing material did not inform senior decision makers, central agencies, and the Minister of the problems and associated risks of relying on the F-35 to replace the CF-18,” Ferguson said in his report. “Nor did National Defence provide complete cost information to parliamentarians.”
DND pointedly rejected criticism that it did not exercise due diligence in managing the project.
The auditor general’s criticism does not mean the government will scrap the F-35 purchase or even consider opening up the sole-source procurement to other competitive bids.
Ferguson’s mandate limits his criticism to the conduct of bureaucrats, but his findings could be incendiary for the Harper government. The audit came just one week after Finance Minister Jim Flaherty announced $5.2 billion in cuts to public spending in his deficit-fighting budget.
NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair said the report raised ethical questions with its “litany of poor public administration, bad decision making and lack of accountability by Conservative ministers.
“But the key question to the prime minister is: how could he allow Parliament to be intentionally misled on the F-35s? Either he knew, and it’s unconscionable, or he didn’t know and it’s incompetence. Which is it?”
Prime Minister Stephen Harper said that was a misrepresentation of Ferguson’s findings.
“The government has not yet purchased this airplane, and has not yet signed a contract. The auditor general has identified a need for greater independence and supervision over some of the activities of the Department of National Defence. in this regard, the government will put that supervision in place before we proceed.”
Harper left the remaining barrage of questions from the NDP and Liberals to two of his ministers, Associate Defence Minister Julian Fantino and Public Works Minister Rona Ambrose. Both ministers stuck closely to the government’s earlier talking points — the freezing of funding and the creation of a new secretariat of top bureaucrats to shepherd the jet purchase from now on. Defence Minister Peter MacKay did not respond to any queries on the auditor general’s report.