OTTAWA – Canada’s military is determined to purchase the F-35 fighter jet rather than a cheaper or more reliable alternative despite a recent flood of criticism and controversy surrounding the U.S. aircraft.

That was the word from the head of the Royal Canadian Air Force, Lt.-Gen. Andre Deschamps, who was testifying Tuesday at a House of Commons committee along with a panel of defiant senior government officials who have come under fire for their handling of the program to replace the current fleet of CF-18 jets.

“Currently from an air force perspective we are focused on delivering the transition to the F-35,” Deschamps said.

And the defence department still believes it can purchase a full fleet of 65 jets in the coming years for the fixed $9-billion budget that has been set aside. That belief is based on a per-jet price of $85-million.

The decision to stick to a plan that has been in the works since Canada signed on to the U.S.-led Joint Strike Fighter program in 1997 comes after Auditor General Michael Ferguson reported last month in an audit that the total cost to Canada for the jets would be $25-billion. That price tag includes $10-billion to operate the jets over 20 years that was never reported to the public.

But Defence deputy minister Robert Fonberg bristled when he was accused of keeping a secret, politically unpalatable alternate budget that was approved by Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s cabinet but never flagged to Parliament.

“Did you ever report to the general public and to the Parliament that it was $25.1-billion or did you maintain that it was $14.7-billion?” asked NDP MP Malcolm Allen.

“The government decided to communicate exactly the same way they’ve communicated since 2004 on the acquisition of major air frame assets,” Fonberg said. “We were not seeking incremental funding from cabinet at the time for operating costs nor do we expect to be seeking incremental funding for operating costs.”

The government had hoped to purchase and take possession of the new stealth fighter jets starting in 2016, but production and development delays have pushed that date back to sometime before the end of the decade, when the aging CF-18s are set to be pulled from service.

The auditor’s bombshell report has cast an uncertain pall over the entire project. The Tories have said “all options” will be considered but it’s unclear if they are considering buying different planes. A panel of senior bureaucrats from the departments of defence, public works and industry has since been created to keep an impartial handle on the procurement.

Referring to the audit’s sharp rebuke of his department, Fonberg said that there are things that defence might have been done differently and better.

But he and other senior officials from other departments went on to insist that they had followed all the rules as they advanced toward what could be the costliest purchase in Canada’s military history.

That includes stringing the price of the jets over 20 years when the planes are expected to be in use for some 36 years and approving a sole-source contract that blocks other aircraft from being considered without having done the proper analysis and documentation from the defence department.

Michelle d’Auray, the Treasury Board Secretary, said planning costs over more than 20 years is “high risk” and so the defence department’s actions were “deemed to be appropriate.”

And François Guimont, deputy minister of Public Works, said his department went so far as to meet with another aircraft manufacturer to discuss the military’s fighter jet requirements before approving a sole-source contracting process — proof, he said, that the government had not simply rubber-stamped the military’s wishlist.

The auditor also criticized the government’s assessment of the $12-billion in contracts and other business that could be had for Canadian business if the F-35 jets are purchased. In many cases, he said, “only the most optimistic scenario was put forward.”

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Industry Canada’s deputy minister, Simon Kennedy, said the estimate was based on a complicated and detailed analysis, including the assessments of Canadian companies.

“We felt we had good information to provide the upper bounds but there wasn’t necessarily the same information to start making projections of what a lower bound could be,” he said. “We’ll have to go back and take a look at that.”