A column in the Globe and Mail slams the federal government for a long litany of military procurement boondoggles, further underscoring the escalating crisis in this high-profile portfolio:
So, blending the Arctic and the military, the Conservatives boldly promised in that election to build three armed, heavy icebreakers to be stationed in Iqaluit manned with regular force personnel. A year later, the promise died, buried by financial reality.
Thus began a string of broken promises, delays, cost overruns, policy reversals and braggadocio that have characterized the Harper government’s defence procurement efforts – in the North and beyond, for the navy, army and air force. For a government that has hugged the military close and announced with ballyhoo that it would spend $50-billion re-equipping the military, the repeated defence procurement failures are among the most obvious of all the embarrassments since the Harperites took office.
While the column is careful to note that certain controversies date back to the prior Liberal government, it also states that many of the military procurement failures can be placed directly at the feet of the current Conservative government:
Several of the embarrassments, in fairness, date back to the Liberal era, notably the cost overruns of the diesel-electric submarines purchased from Britain and the fiasco of the Sikorsky helicopters worth $5.7-billion that were supposed to replace the 50-year-old Sea King helicopters. These new helicopters have been delayed again and only a foolhardy person would predict a new delivery date.
The other failures can fairly be laid at the doorstep of the Conservatives, the most obvious being the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter that the Conservatives milked politically for every drop of political gain, only to find the real, higher costs exposed by the Auditor-General. The project is now under review.
The column concludes by referring to a “conspiracy of optimism” within government circles which sees government officials failing to properly brief their political masters when major projects go off the rails and politicians, in turn, failing to candidly disclose the actual state of affairs to the public.
