Battle of the budget: DND gears up to defend cost of new warships in the new year

Murray Brewster · CBC News

No matter which way they are going to be sliced, the numbers will be jaw-dropping.

The Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO) is set, early in 2021, to deliver an assessment of the Royal Canadian Navy's long-anticipated frigate replacement program, a review that will give the public perhaps the clearest view yet of the kind of investment taxpayers will be asked to make in the future fleet.

A respected former senior defence official, writing in the military magazine Esprit de Corps this fall, took a stab at running the numbers and they are eye-watering, especially in a post-pandemic world.

Alan Williams estimated that when construction and lifetime operating and maintenance expenses are included the new fleet of 15 warships could cost between $213 billion and $219 billion.

Circulating within the defence community for weeks, his scathing assessment has apparently caught the attention of the House of Commons government operations and estimates committee, which has requested a copy of the research.

Between Williams' biting criticism, the budget officer's anticipated take and a planned auditor general review of the national shipbuilding program, the ground is set in 2021 for a major political battle over defence spending, the likes of which haven't been seen in almost a decade.

Back to the future

The last time that kind of watchdog firepower was assembled, the former Conservative government's plan to buy the F-35 was blown back to the drawing board, where the fighter jet replacement program remained for years.

Back then, the fight was all over numbers and transparency and whether former prime minister Stephen Harper's government was levelling with taxpayers, and just as importantly, whether bureaucrats had done enough homework to justify their choice of the stealth fighter.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/navy-frigates-cost-1.5851912