Conservative F-35 accountability moving forward … at a turtle’s pace

The pitiful saga of Conservative mismanagement of the F-35 purchase continues apace.
The Conservative government, dogged by criticism from virtually all quarters for their mishandling of this multi-billion dollar purchase, tried to quietly sneak through a request for proposal (RFP) on Wednesday to find someone to undertake an independent validation of the purchase costs and maintenance of these planes.
The problem is the Conservatives had promised this ‘verification’ more than four months ago:
“ We will have independent validations of the cost assumptions associated with the F-35, both in the acquisition phase and also on the maintenance contract.”
– Rona Ambrose, responding in the House of Commons to a question from NDP MP Christine Moore, April 5, 2012.
And now eighteen weeks later, the independent auditors still haven’t been chosen. And now we learn they won’t be on the job until at least the end of August. After breaking their initial promise to get this done within 60 days, Conservatives have now delayed it even further.
Instead of taking responsibility and being accountable on the F-35s, Conservatives continue to demonstrate their incompetent handling of one of the biggest military procurement purchases in our country’s history.
The government may try and keep hiding the truth, but one day we will find out how much this Conservative fiasco is really going cost Canadian taxpayers.