OTTAWA—National Defence and Parliament’s budget watchdog have been quietly battling over access to key information about the government’s multi-billion-dollar plan to buy the navy new warships.
The department says it remains committed to openness and transparency, but the information requested by parliamentary budget officer Jean-Denis Frechette is “very sensitive” and outside his mandate.
Frechette, however, alleges there is a culture of secrecy within National Defence, and that the department remains among the worst when it comes to transparency.
“National Defence is a problematic case,” Frechette told the Senate defence committee on Monday, Dec. 12.
“There is a certain culture whereby this information suddenly becomes confidential or cabinet confidence.”
The dispute is reminiscent of similar disagreements between National Defence and Frechette’s predecessor, Kevin Page, particularly when it came to the F-35 stealth fighter.
This time, the disagreement started in September when Frechette wrote two letters to National Defence’s top bureaucrat, John Forster, asking for documents explaining the type of equipment and capabilities the navy requires in its new warships.
The purpose was to come up with a cost estimate for the project, which has been billed as the single largest military procurement in Canadian history and forms the backbone of the federal government’s national shipbuilding strategy.
