Democracy Gone Astray

Democracy, being a human construct, needs to be thought of as directionality rather than an object. As such, to understand it requires not so much a description of existing structures and/or other related phenomena but a declaration of intentionality.
This blog aims at creating labeled lists of published infringements of such intentionality, of points in time where democracy strays from its intended directionality. In addition to outright infringements, this blog also collects important contemporary information and/or discussions that impact our socio-political landscape.

All the posts here were published in the electronic media – main-stream as well as fringe, and maintain links to the original texts.

[NOTE: Due to changes I haven't caught on time in the blogging software, all of the 'Original Article' links were nullified between September 11, 2012 and December 11, 2012. My apologies.]

Thursday, June 07, 2012

DND withholding F-35 costing info from PBO, says Liberal MP

The Department of National Defence is not complying with the law and is refusing to hand over costing information on the F-35 to the Parliamentary Budget Officer, Liberal MP John McKay charged Wednesday.

Two weeks after the auditor general’s office released its April report on the F-35 procurement, McKay followed up on a letter he’d sent in January, requesting an updated cost analysis of the fighter jet acquisition. Writing in April, McKay wanted to know how the AG’s report “may additionally affect the cost estimates for the planes.”

In late April, Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page wrote to deputy minister Robert Fonberg at DND, asking for information and documents “that provide a full life cycle cost of the F-35 aircraft.” Additionally, Page encouraged DND “to assume in its analysis” some of the figures coming out of the U.S. – particularly those the U.S. Government Accountability Office was using to establish the average unit procurement cost of the planes.

Page also asked DND to reconcile operating and support, and sustainment costs with those published by the U.S. Department of Defense.

The PBO got an answer from Fonberg at the end of May.

In his response, Fonberg told the PBO that the government had “accepted the recommendations” that the AG made in his spring report on the F-35.

“In accordance with the seven point action plan recently announced by the Government, the Department of National Defence, through the National Fighter Procurement Secretariat, will provide annual updates, including life cycle cost estimates, to Parliament,” Fonberg wrote.

Those updates, he continued, will be tabled within a “maximum of 60 days from receipt of annual costing forecasts from the Joint Strike Fighter (JSF) Program Office, beginning in 2012.”

To McKay, it’s a sign of an “enormous step in the arrogance chain of this government.”

“They are saying ‘we don’t care what the law is, we don’t care about the Accountability Act, we don’t care about the mandated responsibility of the PBO, if we don’t want to respond, we won’t.’ ” he told iPolitics Wednesday. “They’ve said, ‘we’ve now got a seven-point plan.’ Well, so what? The law is still the law. I wish I could change the law with a seven-point plan.”

Since the release of the AG’s report in April, the government has come under attack many times in the House for what the report describes as a faulty decision-making process and a lack of due diligence by both DND and the Department of Public Works and Government Services.

On Tuesday, the opposition continued to grill the government on the purchase.

During question period, New Democrat MP Christine Moore asked why, according to media reports, the government would not disclose what other two fighter jets DND had considered before settling on the F-35.

Associate Minister of Defence, Julian Fantino told her in response that, “The Government of Canada is taking action to ensure that due diligence, oversight and transparency are firmly embedded in the process to replace Canada’s aging fighter jets.”

“We are following a seven-point action plan to fulfill and exceed the auditor general’s recommendation,” Fantino said. “This includes freezing acquisition funding and establishing a separate secretariat outside of the Department of National Defence to lead this project moving forward.”

Under the Parliament Act, the PBO is granted “free and timely access to any financial or economic data in the possession of the department,” except for two cases: when it is personal information or a cabinet confidence.

“There is no excuse under the law,” McKay said, pointing out that much of the information necessary was equally available from the U.S. – as Page referenced in his letter to Fonberg.

“You can’t just say ‘I don’t like the law, therefore I’m not going to obey it,’” McKay said. “From the standpoint of the Liberal Party, we’re going to really ratchet it up with the defence of the of the PBO, because it’s all part of the larger narrative of anybody who doesn’t sing to the Conservative hymnbook is shut down and shut up. This is just part of it.”

Original Article
Source: ipolitics
Author:  Colin Horgan 

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