Government won’t reveal cost of Iraq mission
MPs must wait until it’s over, minister says
The government says it won’t tell parliamentarians how much the military thinks its six-month mission in Iraq will cost. It’s also withholding the figure from the budgetary watchdog.
The military said earlier this month it had provided the government with an estimated cost for the mission. While other countries have made public the estimated costs of their involvement in Iraq, Defence Minister Rob Nicholson told the House of Commons defence committee Tuesday there would be no figures disclosed until the mission was over.
“We will make those costs known when they are known. It’s a little difficult to project in five months in terms of what we will do,” said Nicholson. “We will report the exact cost for Operation Impact through existing parliamentary mechanisms, once they are finalized. But, as reports from Human Rights Watch and others show, there is a human cost to doing nothing.”
Lt.- Gen. Jonathan Vance, senior officer responsible for managing all Canadian military operations, said three weeks ago that the mili- tary is providing cost estimates to the government. And Chief of Defence Staff Gen. Tom Lawson told the CBC Saturday that the military had provided a cost estimate to the government.
Parliamentary budget officer Jean-Denis Fréchette sent the Department of National Defence a letter Oct. 15 requesting an estimate. On Tuesday, the office told the Citizen it received a reply in which DND said it deems its estimate a “cabinet confidence.” The cabinet confidence designation applies to documents or discussions the government keeps private in order to allow frank policy discussions.
Nicholson dodged questions about the letter after Tuesday’s committee meeting, during which MPs had pressed him for answers.
“We’ve been asking now for a couple of months for the costs,” said committee member Robert Chisholm, an NDP MP. “Are you not confident with the estimates provided by the chief of defence staff?”
Nicholson replied to similar questions by slamming the NDP and Liberals for voting against the Iraq mission.
“Why is it that you think it’s not your responsibility to be accountable here?” Chisholm asked. “How can you show the kind of contempt you’re showing for Parliament?”
Canada has sent six CF-18 fighter jets, two Aurora surveillance aircraft, a Polaris air-to-air refuelling plane and more than 600 military personnel to participate for six months in the U.S.-led bombing campaign against Islamic State (ISIL) forces in Iraq. It also has 69 special forces troops training and giving strategic advice to Iraqi and Kurdish forces in northern Iraq.
Earlier this month, after the Defence Department refused to make public its rough figures, the Citizen estimated the first week of air operations to cost between $2.7 million and $4.1 million. However, those estimates follow the Defence Department’s controversial practice of reporting only “incremental costs ” — those deemed above and beyond normal operating expenses.
The full cost of the first week, according to the Citizen’s calculation, is between $8.1 million and $12.1 million.