[Section 15] ...A significant lack of fiscal transparency...

From the government which promised us transparency and accountability, and instead gave us stealth, smoke, mirrors and obfuscation, we learn that not only is the Afghanistan war effort way over budget, we really can't tell by how much.

A lack of federal government "fiscal transparency" has masked the true cost of Canada's Afghanistan mission, but it could cost taxpayers at least $18.1 billion by 2011, the Parliamentary Budget Officer revealed Thursday.

Although the report cites a range of $13.9- to $18.1-billion to 2011, several relevant departments - including Foreign Affairs and the Canadian International Development Agency, the military's two main partners in Afghanistan - refused to give Page's office additional figures.

Officials said the true cost would be significantly higher but they couldn't say by how much.

"Although there are costs incurred due to the Canadian mission in Afghanistan, it is important to note there are no Afghanistan mission-specific appropriations by Parliament for the various departments," the report stated.

"That makes is impossible to isolate the total amounts of money appropriated by Parliament, specifically for the Afghanistan mission."

"There is a significant lack of fiscal transparency due to the current system of financial reporting," the report stated.

The auditors in Page's department relied primarily on the publicly available spending estimates that are tabled in Parliament each year, as well as consulting with international allies such as the United States and Britain to help them crunch the future costs of paying soldiers and diplomats, depreciating the cost of their equipment and future health care.

The Defence Department tried to co-operate, but their numbers didn't add up.

"We have two sets of figures for DND's actual incremental spending," the report stated, citing the $2.72 billion it reported to Parliament up to end of 2009 compared with the $4.61 billion that its internal books revealed to Page's office.

The report said part of the discrepancy could be, in part, due to the lag time departments have in reporting to Parliament, which can range up to 18 months.

In addition to Foreign Affairs and CIDA, the Correctional Service of Canada and Veterans Affairs all declined to share internal data with Page's office, which was established this past spring to bring a greater degree of oversight to public spending.

CIDA's departmental performance reports "do not provide annual spending in Afghanistan for individual projects," the report stated.

The Canadian government has earmarked $1.9 billion between 2001-2011 for development spending in Afghanistan.

"VAC (Veterans Affairs Canada) does not report basic financial data specific to the Afghanistan mission, although Canada's involvement in the Afghanistan mission is a major project and the death, disability, medical and stress related payments are fiscally material."

This is a far cry from the $8 billion Harper claimed.

What a mess. Perhaps Finance Minister Flaherty can clear this up?

Oh, right. Deficit Jim, who has the country $20 billion in the hole so far this year, and yet denies it, isn't about to tell us anything truthful, is he?

For the record, the quote which is sure to haunt Flaherty after this election is

In responding to the worsening global financial crisis that has slowed economic growth in Canada and elsewhere, "we'll do what we have to do, so long as we remain economically prudent. We're sure not going to run a deficit ... We will maintain a surplus in Canada and we will continue to pay down debt."

Asked if running even a small deficit would be bad in these difficult times, Mr. Flaherty said flatly: "Yes, it would be."

Reported October 8, in the G&M.

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Posted By Mark Francis to Section 15 at 10/09/2008 12:24:00 PM