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Dec. 11

No matter what happens now, the F-35 episode will stand as a spectacular example of how not to manage an important public project. One can call it ramshackle, slipshod, inept, dishonest and incompetent, and not even begin to do events justice. Had they deliberately set out to spiral-dive their reputations for sound management and probity into the ground, Peter MacKay & Co. could not have done a better job than the record shows these past three years.

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The report doesn’t include the cost of acquiring between seven and 11 replacement aircraft that are predicted to be needed as some of Canada’s F-35s crash or are otherwise lost over the course of the program.

This alone is expected to cost $1-billion — which would bring the $44.8-billion cost to $45.8-billion.

The true cost of the aircraft was first revealed by the National Post‘s John Ivison, while Postmedia’s Michael Den Tandt broke the story last week that the F-35 program had been scrapped.

The report comes after years of criticism over what has been seen as the Harper government’s refusal to fully disclose how much the F-35s will cost.

The costs have also been made public as the government has been trying to prove to Canadians that it has truly pushed the “reset” button on its plans to purchase F-35s.

Yet even the numbers included in the report aren’t the full story, as the Department of National Defence warned that “these estimates will change as more information becomes available.”