Exactly and he's full of it, show me any contractor who will follow those rules and eat overages...ok yeah..shurrrrr
F35
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Exactly and he's full of it, show me any contractor who will follow those rules and eat overages...ok yeah..shurrrrr
When you ask for something and they ask you it's requirements you tell them everything X has and nothing it hasn't.
It's better than a Eurofighter which seems to be the only thing tendered and nothing is available still.
This one came with no X 36 competitor.
Shame we can't say who we want to buy from in the world. All that job generation as they say would be there with any other.
Lets look at what we got....
• Aircraft: 5.58 B The version without VTL which is fine because we can take off/land it on our airstrips. We are a first world country. We just aren't first world enough to buy the delux.
• Block Upgrades: 0.18 B upgrades and service over time?
• Refuelling Probe: 0.10 B answers that question. It can be refueled but it still cant get to the coast (West) without it.
• Drag Chute: 0.06 B For iced runways....
• Government Supplied Material: 0.01 B owners manual
• Integrated Logistics Support (including simulators and spares): 1.30 B it comes with a really expensive game of duck hunt
• Project Management Office: 0.20 B better be Canadians working there!
• Weapons: 0.30 B not first world enough there either.
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BUSTED! Mackay and harpos mislead Canadians:
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com...ting-complaints-are-deja-vu-for-peter-mackay/
The Conservative government continues to maintain that it didn’t know it was supposed to tell the public the full costs of the F-35 purchase: that the $10-billion it left out of the total was not a lie or even a mistake, but simply reflected its honest belief about how these things should be accounted, or at any rate always have been.
While various ministers, including the Minister of National Defence, Peter MacKay, have said they accept the Auditor-General’s directive that all costs should be included, they have also derided it as at best a wholly “new way of doing business,” and a strange one at that. The same homely analogy to buying a car has been raised, repeatedly, as if to suggest how ridiculous it would be to add up all the costs of a car over its expected life beforehand.
The government, and the Minister of Defence in particular, has maintained this position, notwithstanding long-established Treasury Board policy requiring, in line with the Auditor-General, that the cost of assets be stated in “life cycle” terms, that is including “all relevant costs over the useful life of the acquisition.” It has done so, what is more, in defiance of its own internal accounting, as documented both by the Auditor-General and in news reports from 2010, in which the missing $10-billion is included. That is to say, the government kept two sets of books on the project, one for private purposes showing the cost as $25-billion, the other for public purposes putting it at $15-billion, yet still maintains it had no intent to deceive: that it was just a difference of opinion, a dispute about accounting.
Now, it is possible that a minister could be so ill-briefed that he would never have heard of “life cycle costing,” though the concept has been around for decades; that he would not know it was the standard, not only at Treasury Board, but across NATO. And I suppose it is possible for a government to be so confused that it would both apply and not apply the concept at the same time, particularly if it was unclear that this was something that was required of it, rather than simply good practice.
But it is not possible to believe this, once you understand that in fact there is no difference of opinion: that the policy of accounting for all the lifetime costs of an asset, without exception, is not some crazy invention of the Auditor-General’s, or some musty Treasury Board guideline. It is the publicly stated policy of the Department of National Defence — the department of which, if memory serves, MacKay is the minister. The policy the minister sees fit to ridicule is, according to conventional constitutional doctrine, his policy.Now, it is possible that a minister could be so ill-briefed that he would never have heard of “life cycle costing,” though the concept has been around for decades; that he would not know it was the standard, not only at Treasury Board, but across NATO. And I suppose it is possible for a government to be so confused that it would both apply and not apply the concept at the same time, particularly if it was unclear that this was something that was required of it, rather than simply good practice.
How do I know this? From a reading of another Auditor-General’s report, this one from the fall of 2010, dealing with another military procurement deal: the purchase of 43 Cyclone and Chinook helicopters to replace the notorious Sea Kings. (The Auditor-General at that time was Sheila Fraser, of sponsorships fame.)
The report makes familiar reading. Many of the same issues raised by the department’s handling of the F-35 deal are here: the same overstating of benefits, the same understating of risks, the same failure to document claims throughout. And among the Auditor-General’s complaints, again, is the failure to properly count the costs.
“We found that National Defence has been slow to assess the full life-cycle costs,” she reported with regard to the Cyclones, “and some elements of these costs have still not been completely determined.” She listed some of the costs that had not been included, that should have been: “costs related to contracted Sea King support, new infrastructure, Canadian Forces personnel, and ongoing operating costs.” Similar deficiencies were found with respect to the costing of the Chinooks.
Her recommendation: “National Defence should start estimating full life-cycle costs in the options analysis phase of its project management process and present these costs to decision makers at subsequent steps in the process as the estimates evolve.”
And the Department’s response? “Agreed.” Well, there’s more: “National Defence follows well-established processes for progressively developing and refining full life-cycle cost estimates… National Defence continuously seeks to improve its cost estimates and, in response to this audit, will initiate a further review… etc. etc.” But the gist of it is in that first word: Agreed.
And once that claim is knocked down — that this was all just a dispute over accounting — there is no escape. The government knowingly misrepresented the true costs of the F-35 in its public statements. It knew how it was supposed to account for these, under Treasury Board rules, under the Auditor-General’s recommendation, and by its own publicly stated agreement with both. And it knew how it was doing so in its own internal documents, going back to 2010. It simply chose to tell a different story to Parliament and the public.So there is no disagreement here: no dispute, no confusion, no mistake. In the fall of 2010, Peter MacKay was Minister of Defence. It is inconceivable that he could be unaware of his own department’s position on this major issue: that all costs should be included, including operating costs, including personnel, as the Auditor-General had recommended. Note that her report did not exclude any costs on the grounds that this was “money we’re already spending” on the asset to be replaced, an exception MacKay has tried to carve out.
This isn’t some campaign slip of the lip, or the usual political weasel words, of a kind we have sadly learned to mistrust. This isn’t even a case of ministers misleading Parliament, which used to be a resigning offence. This is a government document, on a straightforward question of fact: the kind we expect we can believe. And not on some minor matter, but on an issue of the highest controversy, just before an election — an election that was in part triggered by the government’s refusal to provide documentation for these figures.
This isn’t about the planes, in other words, or costs, or accounting. This is about accountability. This is is about whether departments are answerable to their ministers, and whether ministers are answerable to Parliament — or whether billions of public dollars can be appropriated without the informed consent of either Parliament or the public. It is about whether ministers speak for their departments, or can disown them when it suits them. And it is about whether we, as citizens, are prepared to pay attention, and hold people in power to account when they lie to us.
Which is to say, it is about whether we live in a functioning Parliamentary democracy, or want to.
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com...ting-complaints-are-deja-vu-for-peter-mackay/
The Conservative government continues to maintain that it didn’t know it was supposed to tell the public the full costs of the F-35 purchase: that the $10-billion it left out of the total was not a lie or even a mistake, but simply reflected its honest belief about how these things should be accounted, or at any rate always have been.
While various ministers, including the Minister of National Defence, Peter MacKay, have said they accept the Auditor-General’s directive that all costs should be included, they have also derided it as at best a wholly “new way of doing business,” and a strange one at that. The same homely analogy to buying a car has been raised, repeatedly, as if to suggest how ridiculous it would be to add up all the costs of a car over its expected life beforehand.
The government, and the Minister of Defence in particular, has maintained this position, notwithstanding long-established Treasury Board policy requiring, in line with the Auditor-General, that the cost of assets be stated in “life cycle” terms, that is including “all relevant costs over the useful life of the acquisition.” It has done so, what is more, in defiance of its own internal accounting, as documented both by the Auditor-General and in news reports from 2010, in which the missing $10-billion is included. That is to say, the government kept two sets of books on the project, one for private purposes showing the cost as $25-billion, the other for public purposes putting it at $15-billion, yet still maintains it had no intent to deceive: that it was just a difference of opinion, a dispute about accounting.
Now, it is possible that a minister could be so ill-briefed that he would never have heard of “life cycle costing,” though the concept has been around for decades; that he would not know it was the standard, not only at Treasury Board, but across NATO. And I suppose it is possible for a government to be so confused that it would both apply and not apply the concept at the same time, particularly if it was unclear that this was something that was required of it, rather than simply good practice.
But it is not possible to believe this, once you understand that in fact there is no difference of opinion: that the policy of accounting for all the lifetime costs of an asset, without exception, is not some crazy invention of the Auditor-General’s, or some musty Treasury Board guideline. It is the publicly stated policy of the Department of National Defence — the department of which, if memory serves, MacKay is the minister. The policy the minister sees fit to ridicule is, according to conventional constitutional doctrine, his policy.Now, it is possible that a minister could be so ill-briefed that he would never have heard of “life cycle costing,” though the concept has been around for decades; that he would not know it was the standard, not only at Treasury Board, but across NATO. And I suppose it is possible for a government to be so confused that it would both apply and not apply the concept at the same time, particularly if it was unclear that this was something that was required of it, rather than simply good practice.
How do I know this? From a reading of another Auditor-General’s report, this one from the fall of 2010, dealing with another military procurement deal: the purchase of 43 Cyclone and Chinook helicopters to replace the notorious Sea Kings. (The Auditor-General at that time was Sheila Fraser, of sponsorships fame.)
The report makes familiar reading. Many of the same issues raised by the department’s handling of the F-35 deal are here: the same overstating of benefits, the same understating of risks, the same failure to document claims throughout. And among the Auditor-General’s complaints, again, is the failure to properly count the costs.
“We found that National Defence has been slow to assess the full life-cycle costs,” she reported with regard to the Cyclones, “and some elements of these costs have still not been completely determined.” She listed some of the costs that had not been included, that should have been: “costs related to contracted Sea King support, new infrastructure, Canadian Forces personnel, and ongoing operating costs.” Similar deficiencies were found with respect to the costing of the Chinooks.
Her recommendation: “National Defence should start estimating full life-cycle costs in the options analysis phase of its project management process and present these costs to decision makers at subsequent steps in the process as the estimates evolve.”
And the Department’s response? “Agreed.” Well, there’s more: “National Defence follows well-established processes for progressively developing and refining full life-cycle cost estimates… National Defence continuously seeks to improve its cost estimates and, in response to this audit, will initiate a further review… etc. etc.” But the gist of it is in that first word: Agreed.
And once that claim is knocked down — that this was all just a dispute over accounting — there is no escape. The government knowingly misrepresented the true costs of the F-35 in its public statements. It knew how it was supposed to account for these, under Treasury Board rules, under the Auditor-General’s recommendation, and by its own publicly stated agreement with both. And it knew how it was doing so in its own internal documents, going back to 2010. It simply chose to tell a different story to Parliament and the public.So there is no disagreement here: no dispute, no confusion, no mistake. In the fall of 2010, Peter MacKay was Minister of Defence. It is inconceivable that he could be unaware of his own department’s position on this major issue: that all costs should be included, including operating costs, including personnel, as the Auditor-General had recommended. Note that her report did not exclude any costs on the grounds that this was “money we’re already spending” on the asset to be replaced, an exception MacKay has tried to carve out.
This isn’t some campaign slip of the lip, or the usual political weasel words, of a kind we have sadly learned to mistrust. This isn’t even a case of ministers misleading Parliament, which used to be a resigning offence. This is a government document, on a straightforward question of fact: the kind we expect we can believe. And not on some minor matter, but on an issue of the highest controversy, just before an election — an election that was in part triggered by the government’s refusal to provide documentation for these figures.
This isn’t about the planes, in other words, or costs, or accounting. This is about accountability. This is is about whether departments are answerable to their ministers, and whether ministers are answerable to Parliament — or whether billions of public dollars can be appropriated without the informed consent of either Parliament or the public. It is about whether ministers speak for their departments, or can disown them when it suits them. And it is about whether we, as citizens, are prepared to pay attention, and hold people in power to account when they lie to us.
Which is to say, it is about whether we live in a functioning Parliamentary democracy, or want to.
Busted what. The accounting is in disagreement due to life cycle costs. costs have been calculated that way before. No big scandal here.
it gets worse:
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com...e-f-35-affair-is-a-fiasco-from-top-to-bottom/
highlights--
There are so many layers of misconduct in the F-35 affair that it is difficult to know where to start. Do we especially deplore the rigging of operational requirements by Defence officials to justify a decision that had already been made? Or should we focus on the government’s decision to buy the planes without even seeing the department’s handiwork? Is the scandal that the department deliberately understated the cost of the jets, in presentations to Parliament and the public? Or is it that its own internal figures, though they exceeded the published amounts by some $10-billon, were themselves, according to the Auditor General, gross underestimates?
. . .if they did not offer evidence to back their claims, whether on performance, costs, or risks, it is because ministers did not think to ask for any. . .
. . .Defence officials hit upon the scheme of drafting the requirements in such a way that only the F-35 could meet them — needlessly, as I mentioned, as the government agreed to go ahead with the purchase a month before the requirements were delivered: that is, before they even knew what the planes were supposed to do, let alone whether they could do them
. . .If ministers were too willing to believe their officials, it might have been because they liked what they were being told. The Auditor General’s report leaves little doubt why: because of the wealth of “industrial benefits” they were promised (“a driving motivation for participation… used extensively as a basis for key decisions… briefing materials [placed] particular emphasis on industrial benefits…). This is what comes of allowing pork-barrel politics into decisions that should be guided by only one consideration: getting value for the taxpayers’ money.
. . .But what’s really at issue here is neither duplicitous bureaucrats nor credulous ministers. It is the lack of transparency throughout. If officials kept their ministers in the dark, it is also true that ministers kept Parliament in the dark. Had anyone outside government been allowed to see the requirements, we might have been able to judge whether these were as essential to the defence of the nation as claimed; whether the F-35 was indeed the only plane that could fulfill them, and so on.
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com...e-f-35-affair-is-a-fiasco-from-top-to-bottom/
highlights--
There are so many layers of misconduct in the F-35 affair that it is difficult to know where to start. Do we especially deplore the rigging of operational requirements by Defence officials to justify a decision that had already been made? Or should we focus on the government’s decision to buy the planes without even seeing the department’s handiwork? Is the scandal that the department deliberately understated the cost of the jets, in presentations to Parliament and the public? Or is it that its own internal figures, though they exceeded the published amounts by some $10-billon, were themselves, according to the Auditor General, gross underestimates?
. . .if they did not offer evidence to back their claims, whether on performance, costs, or risks, it is because ministers did not think to ask for any. . .
. . .Defence officials hit upon the scheme of drafting the requirements in such a way that only the F-35 could meet them — needlessly, as I mentioned, as the government agreed to go ahead with the purchase a month before the requirements were delivered: that is, before they even knew what the planes were supposed to do, let alone whether they could do them
. . .If ministers were too willing to believe their officials, it might have been because they liked what they were being told. The Auditor General’s report leaves little doubt why: because of the wealth of “industrial benefits” they were promised (“a driving motivation for participation… used extensively as a basis for key decisions… briefing materials [placed] particular emphasis on industrial benefits…). This is what comes of allowing pork-barrel politics into decisions that should be guided by only one consideration: getting value for the taxpayers’ money.
. . .But what’s really at issue here is neither duplicitous bureaucrats nor credulous ministers. It is the lack of transparency throughout. If officials kept their ministers in the dark, it is also true that ministers kept Parliament in the dark. Had anyone outside government been allowed to see the requirements, we might have been able to judge whether these were as essential to the defence of the nation as claimed; whether the F-35 was indeed the only plane that could fulfill them, and so on.
wow, reading comprehension fail.
synopsis: way back in 2010, with a different deal, dnd and mackay were told to change their cost calculations and reporting to include life cycle costing.
the dnd and mackay AGREED to do so going forward.
they LIED.
they knew long ago how they were supposed to report the costs, they AGREED to do it that way, and then DIDN'T.
no disagreement on how to do it, just LYING.
MacKay’s defence of F-35 price gap doesn’t add up
support for my 'made-up' numbers:
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/04/09/f-35-price-gap-andrew-coyne/
The life-cycle costs of an asset are those it incurs over the whole of its useful life. Yet Defence’s figures are based on an arbitrary 20-year interval, not on the F-35’s actual projected life. The Parliamentary Budget Officer assesses this at 30 years, while the Auditor-General prefers 36 years. Take the midpoint between the two. Prorate the department’s estimate of operating costs over 33 years rather than 20, and you get a figure of, not $16-billion, but at least $26-billion. Add in acquisition costs of at least $9-billion (and probably more like $10- or $11-billion — but that’s another story), plus the two- or three-billion more the Auditor-General says should be included for attrition, upgrades and the like, and you’re looking at a total cost, all in, of something closer to $40-billion.
Not $9-billion. Not $15- or $16-billion. Not $25-billion. Forty-billion dollars. So far.
support for my 'made-up' numbers:
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2012/04/09/f-35-price-gap-andrew-coyne/
The life-cycle costs of an asset are those it incurs over the whole of its useful life. Yet Defence’s figures are based on an arbitrary 20-year interval, not on the F-35’s actual projected life. The Parliamentary Budget Officer assesses this at 30 years, while the Auditor-General prefers 36 years. Take the midpoint between the two. Prorate the department’s estimate of operating costs over 33 years rather than 20, and you get a figure of, not $16-billion, but at least $26-billion. Add in acquisition costs of at least $9-billion (and probably more like $10- or $11-billion — but that’s another story), plus the two- or three-billion more the Auditor-General says should be included for attrition, upgrades and the like, and you’re looking at a total cost, all in, of something closer to $40-billion.
Not $9-billion. Not $15- or $16-billion. Not $25-billion. Forty-billion dollars. So far.
shhhh. . .let him keep adding in his 'worthwhile' posts. . .his comments are a massive fail, but i enjoy getting a good laugh out of them, so let me keep my source of amusement. . .
Re: MacKay’s defence of F-35 price gap doesn’t add up
Interesting that a more right wing paper is running these stories though.
Interesting that a more right wing paper is running these stories though.
Re: MacKay’s defence of F-35 price gap doesn’t add up
i particularly liked the part where harpo's gov't approved the purchase before they even knew what the criteria to select the f35 were. . .
. . .apparently that passes for due diligence by some posters here. . .
gold, jerry, gold!
i particularly liked the part where harpo's gov't approved the purchase before they even knew what the criteria to select the f35 were. . .
. . .apparently that passes for due diligence by some posters here. . .
gold, jerry, gold!
Is that what I said? Comprehension is a skill sadly lacking in Canada, but it's extremely important.
Re: MacKay’s defence of F-35 price gap doesn’t add up
But the MoU signed by the Chretien government with virtually no knowledge of the jet at all is just ticikty boo?
It's hard to take you seriously when i have to scrape off a few inches of your political bias just to read your posts.
But the MoU signed by the Chretien government with virtually no knowledge of the jet at all is just ticikty boo?
It's hard to take you seriously when i have to scrape off a few inches of your political bias just to read your posts.
Re: MacKay’s defence of F-35 price gap doesn’t add up
Again, I posted my qualifications but apparently yours are ordering drywall. Would you like to elaborate more on your skill set that allows you such deep knowledge of large purchases?
Again, I posted my qualifications but apparently yours are ordering drywall. Would you like to elaborate more on your skill set that allows you such deep knowledge of large purchases?
Re: MacKay’s defence of F-35 price gap doesn’t add up
neither were proper, but at least the mou signed by the chretien gov't included guarantees of residual contracts/industrial benefits. . .the harper version removed those economic guarantees.
frankly, i don't care if people take me seriously, this is the internet. i will keep posting facts, and let others decide. it's hard to take the harpo-thumpers seriously when they fail to address proven points and instead respond with empty rhetoric.
neither were proper, but at least the mou signed by the chretien gov't included guarantees of residual contracts/industrial benefits. . .the harper version removed those economic guarantees.
frankly, i don't care if people take me seriously, this is the internet. i will keep posting facts, and let others decide. it's hard to take the harpo-thumpers seriously when they fail to address proven points and instead respond with empty rhetoric.
Re: MacKay’s defence of F-35 price gap doesn’t add up
apparently you missed the part where i dismissed your analogy. your penny-ante company is peanuts compared to the money we are talking about, and frankly to attempt an analogy between a small business and a multi-billion dollar government procurement contract is flat out wrong. it is not apples to oranges and fails at its root. your 'credentials' as a small business owner in this discussion are meaningless. why bother addressing a false analogy and thus give it legitimacy it doesn't deserve?
lol, weak sauce, as usual
apparently you missed the part where i dismissed your analogy. your penny-ante company is peanuts compared to the money we are talking about, and frankly to attempt an analogy between a small business and a multi-billion dollar government procurement contract is flat out wrong. it is not apples to oranges and fails at its root. your 'credentials' as a small business owner in this discussion are meaningless. why bother addressing a false analogy and thus give it legitimacy it doesn't deserve?
lol, weak sauce, as usual
in other news:
canadians misled and lied to
f35 still massively overbudget, underperforming, with no cost certainty
harper gov't admits they didn't do due diligence, lacked transparency
f35 selected without knowing selection criteria
canadians misled and lied to
f35 still massively overbudget, underperforming, with no cost certainty
harper gov't admits they didn't do due diligence, lacked transparency
f35 selected without knowing selection criteria
