PBO’s Latest Estimate Says Warships Will Cost $77B as Estimated Price Jumps $17B

PBO’s Latest Estimate Says Warships Will Cost $77B as Estimated Price Jumps $17B
Shipbuilders and Irving employees attend an announcement at Irving Shipbuilding's Halifax shipyard on February 8, 2019. Darren Calabrese/The Canadian Press
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OTTAWA—Parliament’s budget watchdog is predicting another multibillion-dollar increase in the cost of a new fleet of warships for the Royal Canadian Navy, pegging the price for what was already the largest military procurement in Canada’s history at more than $77 billion.

Parliamentary budget officer Yves Giroux’s latest estimate is $17 billion more than the government’s stated price for the 15 warships, which are to be built in Halifax over the next two decades and form the Navy’s backbone for most of the century.