Doug’s Dynamic Drivel

As anyone who has been reading here for a few years knows, I have opposed Canada’s involvement in from the start. It’s not about , or the , it never hyas been. It’s always been about securing oil/gas pipelines routes for transporting hydrocarbons out of the “stans” and preventing China from getting their hands on those resources.

In any case Harper’s government promised Canadians that Canada’s contribution to the war would only amount to $8 Billion CDN and that was just another one of his Bushian lies.

OTTAWA — Canada’s mission in Afghanistan has cost billions more than what the federal government has reported to the public and it will amount to between $14-billion and $18-billion by the time the troops leave the country in 2011, parliamentary budget officer Kevin Page reported yesterday.

The costs - which will run about $200-million a month for the next four years and, by 2011, add up to $1,500 for every household in the country - sparked a new round of debate on Afghanistan in the closing days of the election campaign.

Mr. Page said the extra costs will not push Canada into deficit this year. But his report concluded there could be unexpected bills for the mission in coming years, and because the Conservatives have budgeted for slim surpluses and the economy appears to be souring, “uncovering” those costs is “critical.”

Opposition leaders accused Conservative Leader Stephen Harper of misleading Canadians about the true costs of the war. ” again failed to be transparent and accountable to Canadians,” Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion said.

As Steven Staples of Ceasefire.ca said in an email today

The report, by Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page, does not even include the salaries of the 2500 soldiers in Afghanistan, and is still much higher than the $8 billion estimated cost provided by the Conservative government, which included salaries.

I attended the press conference yesterday in Ottawa, and during the announcement of the investigation, Page noted that this study is incomplete because he did not receive full co-operation from government departments, including the military. Even worse, those departments may not realize how much they are spending on the war because of sloppy accounting.

This the first public costing of the war completed by a government office or department. The study was produced at the request of NDP MP for Ottawa Centre Paul Dewar.

Earlier this week, David Macdonald and I released our own costing of the war in Afghanistan called The Cost of the War and the End of Peacekeeping: The Impact of Extending the Afghanistan Mission.(.pdf)

Based on our calculations, the cost of the war to the government coffers, including the salaries of the troops, will be $21 billion. Add to that the financial loss felt by families and communities from so many young men and women injured or killed, and the impact reaches $28 billion.

That’s three time or more than what Harper swore it would cost, proving:

1. He’s a liar

   or

2. He’s incompetent to handle the economy

   or

3. All of the above

He’s a disgrace. He does not represent true . He needs to be removed. Because of Afghanistan Canada has pretty much abandoned the great peacekeeping it has done over the decades, the legacy of PM Lester Pearson. No doubt this pleases the inner war monger in Harper. It was our peacekeeping efforts around the world that won Canada so much international respect, and like Bush has done to the US, Harper has done to Canada, destroyed that legacy. .

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