MacKay, Conservatives should wear F-35 boondoggle

The auditor general's report Tuesday on the mismanagement by DND and the government of the F-35 is drawing major attention, and rightly so. But the fact is these revelations have largely been known for some time and all these objections raised previously -- the Conservatives simply elected to ignore them.

I've blogged at length on the F-35 issue in recent years, and raised many of the same concerns, so I won't repeat them at length here.

July 17, 2010: The Conservative $16 billion fighter jet boondoggle
July 30, 2010: The Ruskies are coming! Conservative talking-points for stupid people
October 14, 2010: Who needs fighters when we can buy Bomarc missiles?
October 19, 2010: All of a sudden we all need the same jet?
January 19, 2011: Shocking fighter jet interoperability! With the Russians!
March 21, 2011: The inter-operable allied air coalition in Libya
March 16, 2012: This is an opportunity to reset the fighter jet procurement process

Basically, the Conservatives continually ignored the warning signs emerging from the U.S. and elsewhere about the viability of the F-35 program. Moreover, while this may end up being the right jet for us, by bypassing a needs assessment they went into this blindly, and by bypassing a competitive tender process they made it impossible for us to get the best possible deal.

The AG's report puts much responsibility at the feet of DND, and rightly so. They wanted the F-35, period, and they did their best to ensure that's what would happen. And the AG's role is to audit departments, not assign political blame. But the blame absolutely must be put at the feet of Defence Minister Peter MacKay and this Conservative government.

Of course bureaucrats are going to try to get their way, and of course the military is going to try to get shiny new toys. It's the job of the minister and the government to provide adult supervision, to weigh the priorities of DND against those of other departments, to put their wish list in the larger context, and balance likes with needs and what's necessary to get the job done. And it's not like this government is in the business of blindly following the advice of the bureaucracy: if that was the case, Munir Sheikh would still be running Statistics Canada.

No, DND and the Conservatives were willing partners here. DND wanted the coolest jet, and the government wanted to be seen as pro-military and take the opportunity to use it as a wedge by labelling any people that raised legitimate concerns anti-military. Which is ironic, with the "support the troops" government now hiding behind DND in the wake of the AG's report.

This whole boondoggle could have been avoided if the government had ever, for five minutes, just stopped demonizing critics and instead listened to and considered their criticisms. The government will act now with the AG tipping its hand. It already has (it received a draft copy some time ago) by signalling it may finally allow a more competitive process, and admitting that, prior to past statements, there's no firm contractual commitment to buy the F-35.

But years will be wasted beginning a process that should have begun years ago, and we'll keep flying CF-18s longer than we would be if the government had put the right process in place from the start. They've wasted time and money on a process they knew was flawed by putting politics ahead of policy, and they've mismanaged what will be the biggest procurement contract in Canadian history. That alone should cost Peter Mackay his job.

There was a time when it would have, but ministerial responsibility is dead in this country. Instead, ministers hide behind  bureaucrats and armed forces members to mask their own incompetence. The true north strong and free, indeed.

P.S. Just to counter one Conservative talking point before it comes to the comments: The previous Liberal government never committed to buying the F-35. It invested in the Joint Strike Fighter program to make development contracts available to the Canadian aerospace industry, and contracts were awarded to Canadian businesses far exceeding that investment. This was an industrial development program only. It developed a prototype, the F-35, based on American specifications and needs. The program included no commitment to purchase the plane that would be developed. The plan was always to develop a list of Canada's needs for a next-generation fighter jet and invite bids through a competitive tender process. It was the Conservatives that decided to forego a competitive tender and buy the F-35s without a full needs assessment or consideration of alternatives.

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