Toronto Star editorial

Jun 26, 2009 04:30 AM
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What is Canada's military mission in Afghanistan costing Canada's taxpayers? As Jack Layton's New Democrats discovered earlier this month, it's not always easy to find out.

When the NDP filed an access-to-information request for the hard numbers, the defence department's first impulse was to refuse to provide them. It cited secrecy concerns with respect to "the defence of Canada." When the NDP rightly raised a ruckus, the military did a strategic retreat and coughed up the information.

For the record, we're spending roughly $1.5 billion this year and next in "incremental" military costs, and we will have spent some $9 billion in total from 2001 through 2011, when the mission is scheduled to wind down.

But those numbers offer an incomplete picture of the true cost.

Given Ottawa's reflexive secrecy and interest in downplaying the cost of the mission, it's good to have an impartial figure such as Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page keeping an independent eye on the books. Last year, in a telling report, he pegged the total cost of Canada's Afghan mission at $18 billion or so, including the long-term cost of caring for injured troops. That figure is probably closer to the truth.

It's scandalalous, then, that Page finds himself battling to preserve his integrity and to get the modest $2.8 million budget he was promised when he took on the complex job of budget officer. A parliamentary committee wants to muzzle him by insisting he first obtain permission from MPs before going public with his research findings.

If the NDP experience is anything to judge by, senators and MPs should be cheering Page on in the interests of transparency, not tripping him up.