OTTAWA—The federal spending watchdog added fuel to the fire Thursday by suggesting Conservative cabinet ministers kept Canadians in the dark about the escalating cost of the planned purchase of F-35 fighter jets.

Senior members of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government would have known that the cost of the aircraft had shot up to $25 billion by the time of the 2011 election but publicly stuck to a lower estimate of $15 billion, Auditor General Michael Ferguson said.

“I can’t speak to individuals who knew it, but it was information that was prepared within National Defence, and it’s certainly my understanding that that would have been information that, yes, that the government would have had,” he told reporters after appearing at a Commons committee. He added that he was referring to members of cabinet.

Opposition MPs continued to hammer the government over the ongoing F-35 procurement effort, which Ferguson found was plagued by cost overruns and a lack of accurate of information for members of Parliament.

“I have a very direct question,” Liberal Leader Bob Rae said as he faced Harper in the Commons’ question period. “When was the Prime Minister first aware that the true cost of the proposed aircraft was $25 billion? On what date was he aware of this fact?”

Harper sidestepped the question and pointed out that no contract had been signed for new jets. “The fact is there are no consequences to this point because the government has not spent any money on the acquisition of aircraft,” the Prime Minister said.

“It is clear that they knew before the last election and failed to tell Canadians the truth,” Toronto NDP MP Matthew Kellway told MPs.

The Conservatives said opposition parties were misrepresenting the results of Ferguson’s audit and noted that they had accepted Ferguson’s recommendation to redo the cost estimates and set up an independent procurement process for the F-35s.

Rae seized on the fact that the Conservatives say they accept the conclusions of Ferguson’s probe but two key government departments — defence and public works — told the auditor they did not accept his finding that they failed to conduct the procurement process with due diligence.

“These two versions of reality cannot both be true. One must be a falsehood,” Rae told the Commons. He asked the Speaker to rule on whether the alleged lack of clarity was a violation of his privilege as an MP.

Conservative House leader Peter Van Loan denied his party was trying to confuse or mislead parliamentarians. “The position of the government is not the position taken by the officials in those departments,” Van Loan said, adding that the government agrees with the auditor’s findings.

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