US Defense Dept: Harper understated F-35 costs

                                       The Hill Times:

Defence Minister Peter MacKay was wrong to compare cost of maintaining F-35s to maintenance costs for the current fleet of fighter jets, says one vocal critic.

The latest U.S. Department of Defense report to Congress on projected costs of the controversial F-35 stealth fighter jets suggests the Conservative government is understating the purchase price of Canada’s initial lot of 65 aircraft by more than $2-billion and that Defence Minister Peter MacKay (Central Nova, N.S.) was wrong when he compared the cost of maintaining the sophisticated planes to maintenance costs for the current fleet of fighter jets, says one of the project’s most vocal critics.

Alan Williams, a former procurement officer with the Department of National Defence in Ottawa, said a Selected Acquisition Report on the F-35 that the U.S. Department of Defense submitted to the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives on March 29, five days before Auditor General Michael Ferguson tabled a scathing report on Canada’s management of its role in the F-35 project, shows the acquisition cost to Canada for the planes the government plans to buy has climbed to $88.7-million per jet, more than $13-million above the purchase price the government used in its last public estimate.

As well, Mr. Williams said a little-noticed paragraph in Mr. Ferguson’s April 3 report shows the government has had secret plans to eventually acquire a total of 79 F-35s, including 14 that Mr. Ferguson disclosed were being planned as replacement aircraft because of attrition. Mr. Ferguson’s report, in a brief reference that was overshadowed by the auditor general’s charge that National Defence hid $10-billion in projected operating and maintenance costs from Parliament, said National Defence had informed Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s (Calgary Southwest, Alta.) government “of the need to consider the requirement for attrition at a later date.”

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