Afghan mission to cost $18.1B

OTTAWA -- A lack of federal government "fiscal transparency" has masked the true cost of Canada's Afghanistan mission, which may cost taxpayers at least $18.1 billion by 2011, the Parliamentary Budget Officer revealed Oct 9.
Based on the available data, each Canadian household will have contributed the equivalent of $1,500 to support what will be a decade of military and political intervention, according to the report by the office headed by Kevin Page.
But that is far from the whole story, said officials in the newly created oversight office.
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 could not 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."
While the mission in Afghanistan has been pushed to the political backburner, the federal election's dominant theme -- the future of the economy and the government's ability to guide the country through stormy financial waters -- was relevant to the release of this report.
"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.
So far, 97 Canadian soldiers and one diplomat have been killed in Afghanistan, while hundreds more soldiers have been wounded.
The military also does not provide "mission specific details" to Parliament, the report found.
"For example, it is impossible to determine how many reservists were deployed for each year of the mission; how much fuel was consumed; or the level of expenditure on equipment reset and betterment, for all Afghanistan related operations."
Page began his inquiry after a request from Ottawa New Democrat MP, Paul Dewar, his party's foreign affairs critic.
Based on what Page's office was able to report, Dewar said the cost of the mission was soaring out of control as the NDP reiterated its demand to bring home Canada's 2,500 troops from Afghanistan.
"Today the Parliamentary Budget Office has revealed that the cost of the mission in Afghanistan has expanded from initial estimates of $8 billion," Dewar said in a statement.
Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, speaking at a press conference in Ottawa before the release of Page's report, said he believes the government has "budgeted adequately" for the Afghanistan mission.
"We've planned ahead," said Flaherty. "I'm satisfied that we have a good handle on the actual costs that we will incur over the course of the next couple of years given the commitment to 2011, that Parliament approved, and given the costs of exiting, which are significant."
Opposition leaders have criticized Harper's government for not being straightforward with Canadians about the mission, and the independent panel led by John Manley urged the government to step up its game on the communications front.
However, the deficiencies uncovered in Page's groundbreaking analysis appear mired in something more mundane: the government's use of two accounting system -- accrual and cash accounting -- that serve to mask the true costs of deploying 2,500 military personnel, and caring for the wounded, among other day-to-day operations.