However, a lack of government consistency and transparency has made the figures difficult to estimate, and they likely understate the full costs of the mission, the report says.
Wow, that comes as a big surprise - the HarperCon$ have made it difficult for the Parliamentary officer responsible to get to the real numbers.
The figures released Thursday are incremental costs — that is, they do not include costs such as salaries that would be incurred by Canada's military anyway, even if it were not in Afghanistan. The cost of military operations, veterans benefits and foreign aid related to the mission were all part of the estimate.
However, Page said certain costs weren't included due to the difficulty of estimating them reliably, and this suggests the figures "may likely understate the costs" of the mission. Such additional costs include danger pay and the need to replace equipment sooner if it is deployed in war rather than peacetime.
So, reality is the number is a lot more than the $18.1 Billion - and I shudder to think how much we've spent on "urgent" equipment purchases that didn't follow the usual competitive bid process.
But, that's not the best part - all of that is simply depressing. Truly pathetic is the utter lack of comprehension of the financial costs coming from our supposed economic genius of a prime minister:
Prime Minister Stephen Harper had previously estimated that the total cost so far would amount to less than $8 billion.
We can afford this how?
4 comments:
Save our soldier boys...
Send Harper to Kabul, and all his MP's with him.
Presumably just after the last of our soldiers get on a plane out of there?
I have never seen any info on how much of a real stake any of the MPs have in the war except for our money. I'm sure that if even one of them could say "My kid is over there and I'm proud and happy he is!" that Steve would trot him out.
As it is I don't think any of the MPs have kids in the military at all. At least the British Royal family makes a show of having the lads get into uniform and do the training. Steve could at least get his boys into cadets so his saber rattling could have a bit of veracity.
I don't agree that 'having someone on the line' (or not) is a pre-requisite to having a meaningful opinion in this matter.
I think by far what is more important is to examine our involvement in Afghanistan in the context of both foreign policy and fiscal objectives - both subjects that absolutely should be part of the public discourse. (Which, PSMH has done his level best to squelch)
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