Time to revive the F-35 controversy again

In typical Harper fashion the government has gone silent on the F-35 and the results of the KPGM cost analysis. As usual they hope that taxpayer apathy and fatigue will set in and they can squander our tax dollars at will.

The KPGM report was handed to the Conservatives back in December of 2012, by then the cost had escalated to over 45 billion dollars yet the Harper regime has yet to release the full report.

What they did do is set up yet another committee, at taxpayer expense I might add, to study the various options available ... so we, the taxpayer, paid KPGM some 600 thousand dollars to tell Canadians the life time cost of F-35's, and now we are on the hook to another group for an unknown amount to tell us we should buy the albatross or not. I have my doubts about the or not.

All this is happening while Lockheed Martin is on a promotional campaign across Canada. Really, if the conservatives were truly looking at all options they would not have their favoured "shock and awe" bomber being promoted before alternates had been evaluated as well.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/story/2013/04/07/pol-lockheed-martin-f35-pr-campaign.html

Lockheed Martin, the giant U.S. defence contractor, is launching a cross-Canada publicity blitz to convince Canadians to buy its F-35 stealth fighter jet — but it's simultaneously raising the price by a hefty $20 million US a plane.


The model we are supposedly buying is the F-35 "A" and does not come fully equipped nor is the communication system for the North, where we are told it will be assigned, adequate for air to ground control contact and therefor the communication systems must be upgraded. Of course that is an added expense that must be resolved for whatever craft we purchase. It does, however add to an already overpriced toy.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/story/2012/12/12/pol-f-35-kpmg-report-release.html

The federal government says it won't make a final decision on which fighter jet to buy until it completes every step of the complex process it laid out last spring following a blistering report from the auditor general about the escalating costs attached to the F-35.

Those costs have now been set at $45.8 billion over the jets' full 42-year life cycle, in an independent audit released Wednesday.

But officials didn't say Wednesday how long its evaluation process will take to find new planes, or whether the aging CF-18 Hornet jets in service now will hold up if there is a significant delay in finding replacements.

Officials said Wednesday that National Defence is conducting a thorough examination of the current fleet, including any costs of upgrades that might be needed to extend its life.

At a press conference Wednesday, Minister of Public Works Rona Ambrose said, "The next step is a full review of options. We have hit the reset button and are taking the time to do a complete assessment of all available options."

A panel of independent reviewers to oversee the evaluation process to replace the older planes was announced Wednesday. Members will include Keith Coulter, Philippe LaGassé of the University of Ottawa, public policy expert James Mitchell and Rod Monette, a former comptroller general of Canada.
 

It is now mid April and everyone is maintaining silence, I have little confidence in the findings of this "independent committee" and even less in what the Conservatives have wasted in tax dollars by failing to do an initial evaluation.