Will Murray: As MPs retreat to their ridings for two weeks, the F-35 story remains on the front-burner in Ottawa. How much will these planes cost? Are they the planes Canada needs? Who's to blame for the cost discrepancies between the government, the PBO and the Auditor General? Will any heads roll?
Today, Canada's Least Watched Political examines the fallout from the F-35 story.
Gregory Mills: This whole thing is a mess from start to finish.
It's becoming increasingly clear that the Conservatives have been lying to the public about the cost of the planes for some time, citing the much lower figure of somewhere around $16 billion for the planes, but the information about the true cost of the planes hasn't been suppressed: Higher cost estimates have been reported since 2010. As for the discrepancy between the government, the Parliamentary Budget Officer and the Auditor General, I suspect the answer is simple politics. Both the PBO and Auditor General have based their findings on actual evidence, the government hasn't (or at least, not any recent information).
The real question that's irked me for some time, however, is whether or not we need them. I've written elsewhere that I'm a sucker for military aircraft, and the idea of the F-35 is a very intriguing one. It's also apparent that after three decades of service the current CF-18 fleet needs to be replaced, and soon.
What troubles me is that since - unlike several of our allies - Canada hasn't conducted a serious review of our defense policy in a very long time, and the F-35 boondoggle has shown that officials at the Department of National Defense tailored the list of needs to suit the aircraft (instead of the other way around), the government's argument in favor of the F-35 have effectively boiled down "it's a cool airplane and the pilots will like flying it."
Forget that we don't know if the damned thing can actually fly and, if it can, whether or not it'll even be able to communicate over our northern frontier. Appalling.
WM: I can't think of another thing this government has done in the last six years that has angered me more than this. I can't speak at all to the quality of the plane, but the way this process unfolded speaks to the very heart of responsible government and parliamentary accountability. We're talking about the second biggest procurement purchase in Canadian history, and yet the oversight seems to have non-existent. Where were the Senior Civil servants to tell DND officials that there was a process to follow, and regardless of the plane they wanted, that process had to be followed? Where was the Minster of Defense?
Story after story emerged about cost overruns and yet, rather than check with his officials, he pushed back against the Opposition and the PBO. Where was the Minister of Public Works? Public Works seems to accepted DND's word on the F-35 without any supporting documentation? An absolute break down in the way responsible government is supposed to function. Some are hiding behind the notion that no money was spent, and things can be fixed before the cash flows. Fine. But if THIS is how DND and PWGSC were acting on this file, one of the most important in Canadian history, how are they, other departments, Cabinet and Parliament acting on every other file the government handles?
There's a real crisis in this country in the way government functions. And we need to care about it. The media needs to care about it. The government needs to care about it, and the Opposition needs to care about it.
John Van Weringh: And the government messaging on this has been incoherent at best. We've seen the government accept the AG's conclusions, and then turn around and argue that it's all an accounting misunderstanding. We've heard that more accountability and review will be required, but that an open competition is unnecessary. We've heard that a contract has been signed guaranteeing a purchase price of $9B - the standard line for over a year - and now there's no contract and no money's been spent. It's clear that somebody really wants to buy this plane. And that cabinet ministers are willing to lie about a non-existent contract in order to ensure cost overruns are overlooked. The bureaucracy has done a bad job at basically its entire job, but none of this makes sense without concluding that the government has been deliberately attempting to mislead parliament and the Canadian people. The contract either existed or it didn't. And it didn't. And not knowing that stretches credibility.
WM: At its core, the problem is accountability. And it's not just a Conservative problem, it - like many other things, is part of a long downward spiral. Losing a Cabinet Minister means taking a political blow. Government's aren't willing to do that. For the most part, this makes Cabinet Ministers invincible. This seems to having an impact on how Ministers do their job. I'm not suggesting that it's willful negligence, but if, on the flip side, a Minister's job security depended on his department functioning properly, there'd damn well be a lot more oversight. And, if a department knew that the Minister was keeping an eye on everything, there'd be a lot less cutting of corners and bowing down to internal politics. Ultimately, a Minister is responsible for his or her department, and MacKay should be fired, but he should be walking out the door with a good number of DND and PWGSC employees.
GM: Which begs the question: Should we expect any kind of serious action as a result of this revelation?
JVW: I doubt it. Firing any cabinet ministers means accepting responsibility. Firing any civil servants means angry people with information the government probably doesn't want coming out about its role in all of this.
GM: I'm inclined to agree - although perhaps that will change if it becomes clear that this starts to effect their agenda.
With polls showing the Conservatives losing their clear lead and more and more of their nominally fiscally restrained base irritated, I wonder if that will change their opinion on how to handle this at all.
JVW: Which more or less speaks to how this hurts them: they may be losing the perception among the general electorate that they're financially responsible. If they lose that, they lose the 10% they need to win majorities.
I wonder whether admitting government culpability and excising the guilty appendage would even work. The hyper-centralization of the party means that Harper may (rightly) be viewed as more or less responsible for everything that the Conservative Party does and is. And even if it would work, if Harper's running the exact-opposite-of-the-Liberal-response-to-the-Sponsorship-Scandal-playbook - which seems to be his go-to - there's no reason to expect any sort of admission, since he saw Martin personally exonerated but still destroyed. Muddying the waters and trying to obfuscate as much as possible - giving potential supporters at least plausible deniability - seems to have worked in the past and I'm not expecting to see anything different in the future.
WM: I think the centralization stuff, while correct, is to inside baseball to really have that much of an impact. I know it's too much to ask, but the Minister should be fired to show the public we have some semblance of accountability and responsible government remaining in this country.
Another question. If you're the Opposition, how do you attack on this issue? Do you offer alternative ideas and policies? Or is 3 years from an election far too soon to start drafting 2015 policies?
GM: It's difficult in this case because, assuming the planes actually exist, we may well start receiving them or have orders paid for by 2015 - much trickier to cancel it then.
If I were an opposition leader I'd be promising a comprehensive review of defense policy and the subsequent changes to procurement, as well as a balanced commitment both to review and (if necessary, cancel) the order, while maintaining the need replace the existing CF-18 Hornets before they become dangerously unreliable.
Aside from that, I think the only strategy really available to the opposition parties is to attack it as evidence of incompetence, wasteful spending etc. Effectively what they've been doing for some time now, including before the election.
JVW: It's too early to commit to anything, but they should definitely argue in favour of the notion of open competitions for this and all other government procurement. It's both good policy and, in this climate, good politics.
GM: At least it could work in this climate, unlike the communications suite of the F-35. Ba-zing!
WM: I've ranted a fair bit about the need for more responsible government and Parliamentary accountability. So, here's a final question to wrap things up. You're given the power to bring in ONE new rule, or ONE new law to help improve the situation. What is it?
JVW: The problem is that trying to make a law forcing politicians to be honest or accountable is like trying to nail down jello. We could make a rule that meaningfully sanctions lying in the house, but (a) that might already exist, and (b) it would just make question period even more meaningless and vapid. In principle, governments and cabinet ministers are accountable, as are senior civil servants, but they're only accountable to each other outside of the context of an election. And governments have learnt that they can probably get away with this sort of thing when the next election comes down the pipe, if people are otherwise generally happy, or if the opposition isn't particularly popular.
There are only two people who can fire Peter Mackay: Stephen Harper, or the good people of Central Nova. Unless we can introduce a third option without thoroughly unbalancing parliament, there's not really much to be done. I'd like to think that a less partisan, less-centralized parliament would feature more internal party discipline, but that may be wishful thinking.
