A report by Canada’s auditor general, Michael Ferguson, has now confirmed what the government has already leaked previously — a plan by the Department of National Defence (DND) to procure contracts to build 15 new warships will cost significantly more than originally expected, and will require either additional funds to be earmarked or for the existing projects to be scaled back significantly. This follows on the F-35 fighter jet cost scandal of 2012, and has Canadians once again asking why they are being asked to sacrifice to the demands of austerity while their government spends extravagantly on its own priorities.

The cost of the new war ships is now expected to exceed $100-billion over their 30-year lifespans, with an initial purchase price tag of $26-billion. Ferguson’s report shows that the government simply took the initial estimates for the costs and signed them off as the actual project budgets, before any actual design work had taken place. The DND admits that these costs may even rise as the project “is in the very early days”, and the number is a “preliminary acquisition cost estimate, for planning purposes.”

This is now on top of the revelation in 2012 that the planned purchase of 65 F-35 fighter jets, on initial anticipated lifetime costs of $9-billion, would have ended up costing $45-billion according to an independent audit. As a result of this particular episode, Stephen Harper was forced to back off on decision to purchase the jets from Lockheed Martin, and would consider a “review of rival aircraft” from Boeing. All eyes are now to whether Harper will or will not backtrack once again.

All the above are a part of the Canada First Defence Strategy, a 20-year, $490-billion scheme revealed in 2008 to purchase new ships, helicopters, planes, and armoured vehicles. This plan has seen the DND’s spending rise from $15-billion in 2005-2006 when Harper first took office, to $22.8-billion in 2011-2012. While the federal government has promised to cut this spending to come in line with the austerity being imposed elsewhere, this has yet to be observed. Instead, the government is pushing cuts on departments such as Veteran Affairs, abandoning thousands of ex-soldiers who had served to defend Canadian foreign interests overseas.