Canada’s Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) could not get an accurate financial estimate of Canada’s military mission in Iraq, Operation IMPACT, because Defence Ministry officials refused to share the information.
In a report released Tuesday (February 17), the office estimated that incidental mission costs between $128.8 million and $166.4 million for a six-month mission.
The report pointed highlighted some of the problems faced by the PBO in getting any information:
On November 7, 2014, PBO requested “all flying hours to date.”17 DND refused to provide this on grounds that it was not “financial or economic data” to which PBO is entitled under legislation. If “economic” is to mean anything distinct from “financial,” it must include factors of production, such as how many employees worked how many hours, or in this case, how many hours have been flown. Such information is essential for producing cost estimates.
In the report, the PBO pointed out: “PBO made a number of information requests to the Department of National Defence (DND) to facilitate this analysis. While DND provided an up-to-date version of its Cost Factors Manual 2014-15, it refused all PBO requests for specific data on Operation IMPACT. Several of these refusals appear to breach DND’s legal obligations under the Parliament of Canada Act.”
The Parliamentary Budget Officer “provides independent analysis on the state of the nation’s finances, the government’s estimates and trends in the Canadian economy; and upon request, estimates the cost of any proposal under Parliament’s jurisdiction.”
Official Opposition NDP party defence critic Jack Harris and opposition Liberal MP Joyce Murray asked Jean Fréchette, the Parliamentary Budget Officer, for an estimate of the costs of the military mission last autumn, after opposition parties had failed to get answers from the ruling Conservatives.
On Monday, the eve of the PBO release, Defence Minister Jason Kenney released the government’s first estimate of the cost so far of the mission: $120 million.
The Canadian military mission in Iraq, Operation IMPACT, started last autumn and included air strikes in Iraq and support of the Iraqi army by some 69 special forces personnel on the ground.
More information:
Parliamentary Budget Office – Cost Estimate of Operation IMPACT in Iraq (pdf report) – here
Parliamentary Budget Office – Cost Estimate of Operation IMPACT in Iraq (powerpoint) – here
Ottawa Citizen – Budget officer decries government secrecy over costs of Iraq mission – here
National Defence – Operation IMPACT (details) – here
For reasons beyond our control, and for an undetermined period of time, our comment section is now closed. However, our social networks remain open to your contributions.