He should resign, or be told to, but it won’t happen.
Defence Minister Peter MacKay should take the fall for the incompetent mismanagement of Canada’s F-35 Lightning fighter bomber purchase project.
Auditor-General Michael Ferguson outlined these blunders in a scathing report Tuesday. He says the Department of National Defence — MacKay’s responsibility — gambled on the jet without running a fair competition, didn’t ensure cost certainty or even any guarantee the plane could replace the CF-18 by decade’s end.
Buying 65 stealth F-35s is one of the single most expensive military buys in Canadian history. Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government has set aside $9-billion to buy the planes, although the contract has not yet been signed.
Yet Ferguson says the Conservatives’ plan to buy new jets was done in an unco-ordinated fashion among federal departments, that key data was hidden from decision makers and parliamentarians.
Ferguson also says the fighters could cost $10 billion more than MacKay and company have publicly acknowledged.
It’s the old story with the defence minister. If he didn’t know about these problems, he should have known, because he is in charge of the defence department.
This is $19 billion in taxpayers money.
Harper, and Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, just unleashed a federal budget that cuts $5.2 billion in government spending and will eventually cost 19,200 civil servants their jobs — including 1,100 in the defence department.
Flaherty and the PM have held themselves up to Canadians as sound fiscal managers, Conservatives who favour smaller government and less spending.
That’s all well and fine, and Harper’s majority government shows that enough Canadians voters believed this last time the polls opened.
But it’s difficult, if not impossible, to make the case now.
Why weren’t the prime minister and finance minister paying more attention to how $9 billion was to be spent?
Where was the defence minister’s oversight?
Sure, the money has not been spent — so the Conservatives can argue no harm, no foul.
And full management of this project has been handed to the federal Department of Public Works. A secretariat has been established to manage the file and it will be overseen by a committee of deputy ministers and senior execs of the bureaucracy.
The government has also promised a more transparent and rigorous process for limiting costs in the fighter purchase, and will conduct an independent review of the F-35’s purchase and its support costs, and make this public.
One wonders, however, if this would have happened if the Conservatives had not known Ferguson’s report was imminent, and what it would say. This report has been one of Ottawa’s worst-kept secrets for a few weeks.
At least initially, MacKay has been mum about Ferguson’s report with Harper taking the lead — a sure sign of the matter’s importance. But MacKay has been in charge of the Canadian military since mid-2007.
Surely he needs to better explain himself, his actions, or the lack there of.
But this government — like most in this country, to be fair — is unwilling to admit mistakes or even mis-steps.
Instead, our politicians unveil plans to be more transparent and to ensure that this doesn’t happen again.
What about ensuring that it didn’t happen in the first place?
Harper and Flaherty should apologize, and MacKay should be relieved of his Cabinet spot and relegated to the Conservative back benches.
Original Article
Source: the barrie examiner
Author: Bob Bruton
Defence Minister Peter MacKay should take the fall for the incompetent mismanagement of Canada’s F-35 Lightning fighter bomber purchase project.
Auditor-General Michael Ferguson outlined these blunders in a scathing report Tuesday. He says the Department of National Defence — MacKay’s responsibility — gambled on the jet without running a fair competition, didn’t ensure cost certainty or even any guarantee the plane could replace the CF-18 by decade’s end.
Buying 65 stealth F-35s is one of the single most expensive military buys in Canadian history. Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government has set aside $9-billion to buy the planes, although the contract has not yet been signed.
Yet Ferguson says the Conservatives’ plan to buy new jets was done in an unco-ordinated fashion among federal departments, that key data was hidden from decision makers and parliamentarians.
Ferguson also says the fighters could cost $10 billion more than MacKay and company have publicly acknowledged.
It’s the old story with the defence minister. If he didn’t know about these problems, he should have known, because he is in charge of the defence department.
This is $19 billion in taxpayers money.
Harper, and Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, just unleashed a federal budget that cuts $5.2 billion in government spending and will eventually cost 19,200 civil servants their jobs — including 1,100 in the defence department.
Flaherty and the PM have held themselves up to Canadians as sound fiscal managers, Conservatives who favour smaller government and less spending.
That’s all well and fine, and Harper’s majority government shows that enough Canadians voters believed this last time the polls opened.
But it’s difficult, if not impossible, to make the case now.
Why weren’t the prime minister and finance minister paying more attention to how $9 billion was to be spent?
Where was the defence minister’s oversight?
Sure, the money has not been spent — so the Conservatives can argue no harm, no foul.
And full management of this project has been handed to the federal Department of Public Works. A secretariat has been established to manage the file and it will be overseen by a committee of deputy ministers and senior execs of the bureaucracy.
The government has also promised a more transparent and rigorous process for limiting costs in the fighter purchase, and will conduct an independent review of the F-35’s purchase and its support costs, and make this public.
One wonders, however, if this would have happened if the Conservatives had not known Ferguson’s report was imminent, and what it would say. This report has been one of Ottawa’s worst-kept secrets for a few weeks.
At least initially, MacKay has been mum about Ferguson’s report with Harper taking the lead — a sure sign of the matter’s importance. But MacKay has been in charge of the Canadian military since mid-2007.
Surely he needs to better explain himself, his actions, or the lack there of.
But this government — like most in this country, to be fair — is unwilling to admit mistakes or even mis-steps.
Instead, our politicians unveil plans to be more transparent and to ensure that this doesn’t happen again.
What about ensuring that it didn’t happen in the first place?
Harper and Flaherty should apologize, and MacKay should be relieved of his Cabinet spot and relegated to the Conservative back benches.
Original Article
Source: the barrie examiner
Author: Bob Bruton
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