Auditor-General Picks Door No. 2
By which I mean, in reference to my yesterday’s post, that Auditor-General Michael Ferguson pulled every punch he could in coming out with a report basically accusing the military of conspiring against the government and deceiving them into thinking that the price of the F-35 jet fighter was artificially low. Which the ministers then loyally told to Parliament.
Which is exactly what the government needs the Auditor-General to say. If he came out and said that Peter MacKay knew the Parliamentary Budget Officer’s $30 billion estimate for the cost of the fighters was pretty much dead-on, then that would mean MacKay had lied to Parliament. It wouldn’t be the first time, but it would probably be his last.
Consider which of the following two scenarios is more likely:
First, the Conservative government puts an experienced and influential Cabinet minister in charge of defence to oversee the F-35 purchase. He decides they shouldn’t hold a competition for the fighter purchase, because the F-35 is the future investment of the US Air Force, and America is our ally, and we should stand by them.
Then, as costs start to spin out of control, they gamble that the inflation will be pretty limited and Peter MacKay asks the Defence Department to come up with some bogus numbers saying they’ll only cost $15 billion or so. (But he also has DND produce some internal figures showing the “real” cost, of around $25 billion.) When critics like the Parliamentary Budget Officer start picking at the numbers, the government sticks to their guns — like they always do — and hopes the F-35 won’t get any more expensive than it already is.
Here’s the second scenario: the Conservative government puts a negligent, incompetent buffoon in charge of the army. The military, meanwhile, decides that civilian command of the military is just a silly anachronism and that it’s time to take charge of their budget for themselves. They initiate plans to buy the F-35 fighter. They tell the minister we can’t hold a competition for a fighter. Because he has no experience with public budgeting, he agrees. They tell him that it’s going to be cheap and not to worry about cost increases. Because he’s a clueless moron, he accepts the internal figures. Because he never watches TV or picks up a newspaper, he doesn’t realize that no less than the United States government is saying publicly that his “official” F-35 figures are out to lunch.
The government has picked Option 2: MacKay, we are told, is an incompetent buffoon who apparently saw no need to take any real control over the most expensive government contract in our country’s history, and therefore can’t be held responsible for the fact that things went sour. Um, excuse me? Either he’s a liar or he’s incompetent. Maybe even both. Why do we want a lying incompetent oaf in charge of a military which, according to the government, has gained so much control over its own affairs that it can now push multi-billion-dollar jet fighter purchases through Cabinet on the nod? What will our out of control military do next?
Moreover, now that the military has been “caught” trying to hoodwink the government into buying the F-35, the government says it is going to hold a “proper” review of what fighter is best for Canada. That review will be conducted by a new office called the “F-35 committee.” Yeah, I’ll bet they’ll hold a proper review, all right.
If the military is so out of control that it no longer has to answer to competent responsible government, then the entire leadership of the military needs to be sacked now, before things get even worse. If the Cabinet minister responsible for the military is so deceitful and craven that he would lie about his own responsibility and try to fob off the entire thing on his department, then he should respond.
Either way, the fact that someone evidently attempted to sneak $10-$15 billion past Parliament by hiding the true figures and submitting false ones to Parliament means that somebody needs to be fired. Preferably a lot of people. If the Prime Minister refuses to do so, what he is saying is that he really doesn’t mind if Cabinet ministers and their governments lose literally billions of dollars through shady accounting. That doesn’t exactly square with the “ruthless budget cutting” we’ve been hearing about lately.
It’s worth thinking back to last year. The reason the government was held in contempt of Parliament was because they were refusing to provide costing details on the F-35 jet fighter. Now, the Auditor General would have us believe that they couldn’t supply the true details to Parliament because the military wasn’t supplying the details to them. Yeah, right.
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Sarah
Third scenario: individuals were bribed.
Sam Gunsch
re: @Sixth “Now, the Auditor General would have us believe that they couldn’t supply the true details to Parliament because the military wasn’t supplying the details to them.”
From the Auditor General’s response that CBC chose to use to get at the issue you raise, where the Auditor General answered a question on what Cabinet/Ministers could or should have known, I thought his answer went as far as he could: as I understood him, Ministers/Cabinet level communications necessary to render a judgement by the AG, were off-limits to his investigation, so he can’t speculate as to what they could or should have known, and thus cannot comment on their culpability.
To my limited knowledge, this is how it works here in Alberta.
If Cabinet and Ministers don’t want them to get the key stuff, Auditor Generals and our Privacy Commissioner just can’t get at key stuff.
Since the various versions of Privacy Acts and Freedom of Information Legislation have been implemented, Cabinet, and Ministers have found more ways to thwart accountability around what they knew and when they knew it.
I can understand an Auditor General that refuses to write or say anything he can’t document.
The slightest stretch or speculation would be siezed upon by this Borg CEO and his crew to discredit the AG out of the gate.
An AG can’t do what Coyne did and use the phrase ‘willful blindness’ to describe in a political way that everyday Canadians appreciate.
BTW: I have personal experience of this problem of Ministers/Cabinet easily being able to withhold information or communications:
In the late 1990′s on behalf of my ENGO I pursued a Freedom of Information Request for 9+ months. Finally after several stonewalling partial releases of information heavily redacted, the gov’t and the forestry company involved were forced to an appeal hearing before the Commissioner. The company CEO caved and told the gov’t to release to my ENGO the timber supply data to end the media coverage of the story. But the gov’t was able to invoke Cabinet/Ministerial rules to avoid having to release any of their communications re an assessment of that data. My ENGO’s contention was that their was insufficient timber volume to support another pulp mill.
harebell
So what you are saying is that Peter MacKay is either a lying PoS or is an incompetent prat?
I’d go with a combination of both of those and add a dose of spineless treachery and general cowardice.
That’s why he is where he is. Goodyear is a purveyor of woo and ignorance so is in Science, so why wouldn’t an incompetent craven coward be assigned to defence? It’s how Harper rolls..
Sixth Estate
Sam — ATI is a joke in this country, especially at the federal level. In this case I have very little trust in the AG’s office after their decision not to reopen the Tony Clement investigation after it was PROVEN they had been lied to about documents. In this case the report suggests the minister was misled by the Department, and while it’s easier to create a paper trail for that, in any case it’s wildly unlikely, given what I know about government bureaucracy and especially about this government. The Minister of National Defence is also specifically responsible for information his department supplies to Parliament.
harebell — Well… you said it, not me.
Actually, I’ve kind of been wondering if Fantino was put into his bizarre “Associate Defence Minister” post so that he could be sacrificed in the event something like this happened. That also has the convenient benefit of throwing to the wolves someone whose campain finance documents are, shall we say, unusual.
Sixth Estate
Of course, if we apply the “Oda Rule” (i.e. that every time the name of the department is used in a report, actually it is referring personally to the minister), then the AG report is littered with allegations that Peter MacKay lied to Parliament.
So I guess that’s okay, after all. In fact, I think I’ll write about it tomorrow.
P. D. Carswell
I thought Mulcair summed it up pretty well: the government’s position on the F35s over the past year has either been unconscionable or incompetent. Which?
Is there any possibility that the DND will stand up and defend itself against the AG’s report, and/or pass the buck to the Minister(s)? I would love to see them do that, but don’t know if it’s possible. Nothing gets done without this government’s hands all over it.
Sixth Estate
DND is not going to say anything they’re not cleared to say by the minister. The best you’ll get in that direction is a few conveniently placed press leaks.
sushi
My first thought was that this pending fiasco was the reason for Fantino’s position as “Procurement Officer.” They had him prepped to throw under the bus if that was required. This CPC group of politicians makes Chretien’s team look like choirboys.
Sixth Estate
Yes, my first thought too. (Well actually, at the time I wasn’t sure whether it would be the F-35 or the ships deal, but the ships deal has absurdly soared through despite costing much more than the F-35, probably upwards of $60 billion if this government’s chronic under-estimating is taken into account. At least it’s being spent in Canada.)
P. D. Carswell
I picked up a good comment made in another context: “Liberals focus on process; conservatives focus on results.”
Sam Gunsch
Ivison agrees with @Sixth that AG let ministers off the hook.
excerpt: “All three ministers are fortunate Michael Ferguson, the new Auditor-General, let them off the hook by saying in his report he found no briefing materials informing them of the problems or risks encountered by the F-35s.”
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/04/04/john-ivison-f-35-debacle-saw-canadians-nearly-played-for-fools/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
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I remain unconvinced that the AG could have directly commented on the minister’s culpability any further than he did. Making judgements without documentation directly on point can be characterized as an AG being speculative. And the AG would then have been by the entire Con-Borg machine on this, and it would have muddied the F-35 waters further to their benefit.
*If* briefing materials to ministers had been found, the AG would have been able to make clear statements of how they failed to be transparent, how they misled parliament, Canadians. And he no doubt would have done so, I believe.
The AG did not find the documents, so he could not make categorical judgements in that regard.
Again, it’s my understanding of AG’s role and function that they must be scrupulous about maintaining a reputation for basing their ‘judgements’ of situation based only on verifiable ‘facts’, e.g. documents of communications, procedures used or not, etc. To make a claim about the ministers behavior, AG’s must have evidence to directly on point, not circumstantial.
He went as far as he could, I believe.
And: What the AG did say was however more than ample basis for op-ed writers, and opposition parties to conclude and assert that the AG *did find* the government misled parliament and Canadians.
The Con’s response is thus limited to attacking the Opposition’s ‘intepretations’ of what the AG report *did find* rather than being able to attack the AG for speculative ‘political’ conclusions, had the AG written those judgements without specific documentation to back them up.
anyways… I think at least a couple different perspectives are possible on this.
The Sixth Estate » Auditor-General Stops, Backs Up, Changes Doors
[...] in order to sack an Auditor-General — and my apologies also to said Auditor-General for what I said last time. “I can’t speak to individuals who knew it, but it was information that was [...]
Sixth Estate
I’m embarrassed to see myself placed in the same camp as a propagandist and a government stooge. They’re “fortunate”, Ivison? Call it like it is, coward.
Anyways, in light of today’s news (see top post), I have to take back everything I said about Ferguson. So will the Harper government, though for exactly the opposite reason.
With regard to your statement, you are largely correct. However, the AG did impute such motives to bureaucrats. Maybe I’m missing something here, but the notion that he can do so for bureaucrats and not ministers seems dubious in the utmost. In any event, it’s a moot question now because he’s explicitly stated that he believes ministers lied to Parliament and to the public. A shame he couldn’t have put it in writing.
Sam Gunsch
re: “I’m embarrassed to see myself placed in the same camp”
I doubt anyone would mistake @Sixth for a member of Ivison’s camp.
I merely shared Ivison’s statement to accede to your point, re the obvious effect of the AG not explicitly tagging a minister or Cabinet… the effect of ‘letting them off the hook’, which quickly became obvious to even the water carrier’s for Harper-cons.
When ‘their tribe’ agrees it usually means that everybody can see the obvious.
After 20+ years of watching the disciplining of civil servants in AB that have the poor judgement to write anything politically critical… my default assessment for situations like this, especially now that Harper is ruling by be willing to destroy any civil servant heading any agency, is that even AG’s know they can be destroyed.
The dep’t bureaucrats, even at the most senior levels, have much less retaliatory power over AG’s, I would think…so the AG could much more safely impute motives, especially with the extensive paper trail.
Sixth Estate
The thing is, I really don’t think Harper can take on the Auditor-General and expect to survive politically. Although he is less safe than the Chief Electoral Officer, the two of them are pretty much unattackable without dramatic consequences. In BC the Auditor General is taknig th egovernment to court. I’m not asking Ferguson for quite that much courage.
I can see your point and I think it might be his reasoning too, but I will not sit idly by while the few remaining checks on authoritarianism in this country decide to protect their careers.