A Canadian on Politics

The plan to buy F-35 Joint Strike Fighters will cost billions more than the $29-billion estimated by Canada’s budget watchdog, a U.S. defence spending analyst says.

“It’s going to be significantly more. It’s not going to be $1-billion more, it’s going to be significantly more,” said Winslow Wheeler, a defence-spending watchdog with the Washington-based Center for Defense Information.

The $29-billion estimate from Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page put a startling price tag on the cost of a fleet of 65 stealth jets, though the government insists they will cost about half that amount.

But Mr. Wheeler, a former staffer with the U.S. Government Accounting Office and with both Republican and Democratic senators, said even Mr. Page’s estimate – though reasonable now – doesn’t take into account key elements that will make the costs rise: problems with the complex planes that will be inevitably be discovered during testing and the slashing of the number of planes to be produced by the United States and its allies.

[…]

But Mr. Wheeler argues that price tag, once cited as the “non-recurring fly-away” in the United States, has been abandoned by the planes’ proponents. It usually doesn’t include engines and avionics to get the planes flying, and it includes adjustments to 2002 dollars, plus an ample expectation that the cost of each plane will get markedly cheaper as the manufacturer, Lockheed Martin, learns how to build them more efficiently.

“To get to that number, they use several crude, disingenuous tricks. And they sprinkle a little fairy dust, in terms of ‘learning curve’ and other magical potions, to pretend it’s got some science behind it,” he said. “It’s all hogwash.”

DOES NOT INCLUDE ENGINES.

New fighter jets Canada plans to buy will be more than $100 million each — at least $25 million more per plane than government estimates — according to a top U.S. budget watchdog.

Conservative government officials have said 65 new joint strike fighters being built to replace Canada’s F-18 jets will cost about $75 million each, about $9 billion with training and an additional $200-$300 million a year in maintenance.

But Mike Sullivan, director of acquisition management at the US General Accountability Office, said he doesn’t know where that estimate comes from.

“That’s not a number that I am familiar with at all,” he said in an interview Tuesday with CBC’s Power & Politics with Evan Solomon, cautioning he hasn’t seen the methodology behind the numbers.

Sullivan said the estimated cost of the F-35A model that Canada is buying is “in the low 100 millions.”

“Probably somewhere between $110-115 million,” he said.

A prominent Conservative admitted to CBC that the cost of the F-35 fight jets might not be as the government has promised.

Earlier on Power & Politics, Conservative MP Laurie Hawn said Canada is buying the planes at the peak of their production, making them cheaper than the $133 million the U.S. estimates their jets will cost. Hawn also said the $133 million estimate is an average of three models being built, of which the Canadian jet is the cheapest.

This is definitely something that will be coming up a lot in campaigning. It has been mentioned repeatedly in political rhetoric (why are we putting money into F-35s and not our own people, etc), to say nothing about the fact that the conflicting prices from both the Parliamentary Budget Officer and now a top US Budget Watch Dog.

I would like to see more transparency on this.  I know our current fighter planes are out-of-date, but what does that translate to? Decreased effectiveness? Risk to our pilots and military personnel? Or is this the equivalent of having a 4 year old laptop when your neighbour just bought the new macbook air*?

Will the F-35s replace the outdated fighters? Or will they run simultaneously?  If this is replacing the fighters, is it 1:1? or are we getting more?  Why are we getting more, if we are?

Furthermore, exactly what are we saying and what are we setting ourselves up for getting the “cheapest” version of these jets?  What does this mean, and what does it mean based on the statement (that I am inferring) that: “We are going to ramp up and update our defence (butonlythecheapestversionpossiblekthx).”

Then I have one last question.  Where will this purchase put us on the global stage and is it where we, as a country want to be?

*the macbook air is REALLY kickass awesome. I’m just saying.