statism watch

Bruce Campion-Smith, Toronto Star
October 9, 2008

Parliamentary budget officer pegs cost per household at $1,500 by 2011 – but warns it could be higher

OTTAWA—The war in Afghanistan and its consequent rebuilding will cost Canadian taxpayers up to $18.1 billion — $1,500 for every household — by 2011, says Parliament’s budget officer.
Kevin Page’s report also says the cost could run even higher, while acknowledging that his forecast is only a rough estimate.

He said it’s impossible to come up with an accurate number because there are many variables and not all the government departments involved have provided enough information.

And Page warned in his report that the figures are so ill-defined that the war might threaten Ottawa’s balanced-budget projections over the long-term as projected surpluses get thinner.

“Budget transparency for parliamentarians and Canadians needs to be improved,” he told a news conference Thursday.

“When compared with international experience, Canada appears to lag behind the best practices of other jurisdictions in terms of the quality and frequency of war cost reporting to their respective legislatures.”

He blamed both successive Conservative and Liberal governments for relying on a hodge-podge way of tracking the figures, where different departments account for their budgets in different ways.

For example, National Defence reports the “full cost” of its expenditures, which include both the peacetime estimate of equipment and soldiers as well as the extra funds needed to fight the war.

Page’s report examined the incremental cost — or the amount over and above what would have been spent in peacetime.

He estimated that Canada is spending as much as $200 million each month in Afghanistan, where 97 soldiers, one diplomat and two aid workers have died.

His report is the first independent federal estimate of the overall military and development costs of the mission since Canada went to war almost seven years ago.

The Conservative government had pegged the cost of the war at up to $8 billion, but that didn’t include many longer-term and related items.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper dismissed suggestions that the government estimate was way off.

“The debate is not that the numbers are wrong, it’s a debate about what to include and not include,” he said.

“Look, we’ve been clear that the cost is high. We are doing important work there as part of the international effort; we’re certainly not alone spending money.”

Liberal Leader Stephane Dion, who supported Harper’s bid to extend the combat mission until 2011, accused the prime minister of trying to hide the real cost of the war.

“Stephen Harper failed again to be transparent and accountable to Canadians,” he told reporters on the campaign trail in Halifax.

New Democrat Leader Jack Layton, whose party asked for the evaluation, said the Liberals and the Tories should be held jointly responsible for the failure to consider the cost.

“The first thing Canadians should do is be very upset with governments and parties that have authorized a war where they won’t tell us about the costs,” he said in Sudbury, Ont.

“In fact, they’ve tried to hide the real costs. And that’s not right. The government should have spoken truthfully and the Liberals that supported this particular mission and its extension should be speaking truthfully about the costs.”

NDP foreign affairs critic Paul Dewar said he believed the outcome of last spring’s vote on the mission would have been radically different had these numbers been available then.

“I don’t believe we would have extended the mission.”

The report, which relied heavily on publicly available data instead of internal department assessments, contained major caveats and omissions, including the cost of equipment purchases and leases mandated by an independent commission.

Page’s forecast provides a range, suggesting the final bill could be anywhere between $14 billion and $18 billion, but it is based on the assumption that the current deployment of 2,500 troops and support staff remains the same. If the mission expands, so will the costs.

The military indicated last summer its numbers on the ground will go up — by at least 350 — when it deploys battlefield helicopters and leased unmanned aerial vehicles early next year.

The report does not include the nearly $500 million cost of those items, which were key recommendations of the commission headed by former Liberal deputy prime minister John Manley.

Page said the final total may not be known for decades, because the costs of caring for wounded Afghan veterans — including victims of post-traumatic stress disorder — can’t be accurately and immediately calculated.

He had to fudge some estimates of present costs because the military did not provide him with enough information, even on basic questions such as how many reservists are deployed in Kandahar each year and how much fuel is consumed.

The Canadian International Development Agency does not “provide annual spending (estimates) in Afghanistan for individual projects,” the report cautioned.

The report also laid out detailed projections on casualties, both wounded and killed, using three different scenarios.

As many as 108 more soldiers could lose their lives between now and 2011, if troop levels remain the same, Page suggested. The figure could go as high as 150 if Ottawa deploys another 1,000 troops.

But the grim number-crunching exercise is based on Canada suffering the same losses between now and the end of the mission as it did in 2006, Canada’s worst year for casualties when 36 soldiers lost their lives.

The report also suggested that as much as 91 per cent of the money spent thus far has gone to the military and veterans benefits, while only nine per cent was poured into aid and development.

There had been two public attempts to set a cost to the war prior to today’s estimate.

Military researcher Dave Perry, formerly of Dalhousie University’s Centre for Foreign Policy Studies, took a run at the figures in a recent paper and suggested the number could be as high as $20 billion.

The Rideau Institute, a left-leaning think-tank, said yesterday it believed the figure to be as much as $28 billion.

The New Democrats want to pull out of Afghanistan right away and Dewar says the parliamentary report reinforces that view.

“I think Stephen Harper and Stephane Dion need to explain to Canadians why we’re continuing with a mission that isn’t working and that Canadians cannot afford,” he said.

The parliamentary budget office is an arm’s-length agency similar to the auditor general and is responsible for providing

Source| See Also under Afghanistan: Delta Force Officer: We Weren’t Allowed to Kill Osama Bin Laden |   Victory impossible in Afghanistan: senior British commander | Defiant military watchdog widens detainee hearings | ‘Some’ Troops to stay in Afghanistan past 2011: McKay | CSIS faces review in Khadr case | Blackwater-linked firm to train Canadian troops | Canadian troops continue gearing up, to receive US counter-insurgency training | Asia’s new ‘great game’ is all about pipelines | MacKay dismisses Taliban threat as ‘propaganda’ | Controversial Kandahar governor replaced | America to assume command in Afghanistan | Canadian military acquiring new helicopters, drones | Low Level Driver Convicted Of Terror Charges While Bin Laden’s Senior Body Guard Was Let Go | Afghani Narco-state Continues to Blossom under Puppet President | Protesters push for Omar Khadr’s release | Obama promises 10,000 more troops for Afghanistan | Afghanistan suggests Pakistan responsible for embassy bombing | Canadian, NATO forces stood down during Afghan jailbreak | Canadian military silent on Afghan civilian deaths: UN investigator | US Counterinsurgency Manual Leaked, Calls for False Flag Operations, Suspension of Human Rights | Report: U.S. Gave Green Light For Taliban Prison Attack | Don’t look, don’t tell, troops told in response to Afghani child abuse | Post-traumatic stress disorder’s hidden scars | Over 100 complaints about access to govt. info on Afghan mission: report | Canada sets up new military spy unit | Bid to Block Afghan Detainee Inquiry Slammed | Army begins using $150,000 artillery shells | FBI documents contradict 9/11 Commission report | Truth or Terrorism? The Real Story Behind Five Years of High Alerts | 9/11 widows call for new investigation after revelations of White House, commission ties | Director of 9/11 commission “secretly spoke with Rove, White House” | Eight U.S. State Department Veterans Challenge the Official Account of 9/11 | Twenty-five U.S. Military Officers Challenge Official Account of 9/11 | Ex-Italian President: Intel Agencies Know 9/11 An Inside Job | Afghan poll not as clear as it seems | 9/11 – the big cover-up? | New Bin Laden Video: 100% Forgery | What Ottawa doesn’t want you to know: Government was told detainees faced ‘extrajudicial executions, disappearances, torture and detention without trial’ | The Lies that Led to War | U.S. Government Caught Red-Handed Releasing Staged Al-Qaeda Videos | US Allowed Taliban, Al-Qaeda Airlift Evacuation

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