The Parliamentary Budget Officer has written to the deputy minister at Defence.
The Parliamentary Budget Officer has written to the deputy minister at Defence.
We have received a new request from a parliamentarian under Section 72.9 (d) of the Parliament of Canada Act (Act), requesting the PBO to undertake an update of the life cycle cost estimate of the F-35. Pursuant to the PBO’s statutory authority under Section 79.3 of the Act, I would like to request that DND provide information and documents that provide a full life cycle cost of the F-35 aircraft with life cycle cost being defined in the DND Costing Handbook (Annex I).
Further we would encourage DND to assume in its analysis, the Average Unit Procurement Cost (AUPC) published by the US Government Accountability Office (GAO), an independent, nonpartisan agency that works for the United States Congress. The last published figure for AUPC is $137 million per aircraft for all variants in GAO’s report on March 20, 2012 (Annex II – Table 1, Page 4).
An official with the GAO has priced the model that the Harper government has sought at somewhere between $100 and $115 million.
The Globe notes that the government has officially changed the status of the F-35 procurement.