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Parliamentary budget officer Kevin Page says National Defence'sprocess to buy equipment is broken if the way it handled the F-35fighter jet program is normal. In an interview with Evan Solomon, host of CBC's Power & Politics, Page pointed to committee testimony by top department officialswho said the way they handled the process to buy the F-35 is theway they usually do it. If that process is normal, Page said, then it's "broken. Completelybroken. And wrong." Officials gave one estimate to cabinet, he said, that included thefull costs of the plane for the complete lifespan, but gave anotherestimate to MPs. "To tell Parliament, effectively, to tell Canadians, that, well,actually it's a much smaller number, that's wrong," Page said. Earlier in the day, Page testified at a committee that NationalDefence withheld information when he was preparing hiscontroversial report on the costs of the F-35s, and he laterindicated he thinks Canadians were misled about the true costs ofbuying the fighter jets. Opposition MPs, including interim Liberal Leader Bob Rae, reactedto testimony from Page and other officials at the public accountscommittee meeting by saying the government "lied" to the Canadianpeople about the F-35 costs and didn't share its own internal costestimates with the public. During his hour of testimony, Page told MPs he has now learned inthe wake of Auditor General Michael Ferguson's report released inApril that his office didn't get all the information it asked DNDfor when he was trying to calculate the full life cycle costs ofthe planes the government is considering buying to replace theCF-18 fleet. Page's report was done in response to a request fromthe Commons finance committee. When asked why he didn't get everything he asked for, Pageresponded, "We don t know the reason for that." "We also asked for information on their methodology and did notreceive it," Page said. Public should be given same numbers as cabinet Conservative MP Chris Alexander, parliamentary secretary to DefenceMinister Peter MacKay, had a tense exchange with Page during themeeting when he challenged the budget officer to explain why hecalculated costs over 30 years while DND uses a 20-year cycle. "I see actually no logic as a budget officer to use 20 years whenwe know that the real life cycle is going to be 30 years,potentially more," Page said, adding that the CF-18 life cycle isturning out to be around 40 years. Just because the government has used the 20-year estimate fordecades doesn't mean it's right, Page said. Alexander suggested Page should be using the same time period asDND, since it is the department buying the plane, but Page shotback that taxpayers are the ones picking up the tab and that it ishis job to provide independent analysis of government spending. When he spoke to reporters after his testimony, Page was askedabout comments he made on CBC's The House on Saturday when he said it looked as if the government kept twosets of books for F-35 estimates one for internal use and onefor the public. Ferguson's report showed that cabinet was told in 2010 the planeswould cost $25 billion. But in response to Page's report in March2011, DND said the price tag was $15 billion. The difference innumbers is what has prompted opposition MPs to accuse thegovernment of hiding the true costs of buying the planes. "I don't think we should be providing different numbers," Page saidThursday. It would enhance trust in Parliament if the same numbersthat were given to cabinet were given to the public, he said. When asked if the government wanted Canadians to think the planeswould cost less than was internally estimated, Page said yes. NDP MP Malcolm Allen said after the meeting that Prime MinisterStephen Harper and MacKay both chose to communicate the lowernumber to Canadians. "They tried to minimize the cost, to make it look as if it was abetter program and a cheaper program than it was. Mr. Page isabsolutely correct," he said. 'They lied to the people of Canada' Rae, who doesn't normally sit on the public accounts committee,said Harper and his government also chose to attack Page and theopposition when they said the figure must be higher than the $15billion instead of revealing its $25-billion estimate. "They lied to the people of Canada before the election and theylied to them during the election about the real cost of the plane,"said Rae. Harper did "not tell the people of Canada the truth that he knewabout the potential cost of this project," according to Rae. In his opening statement, Page said he wanted to make it clear thathis office did take operating costs into account when it calculatedthat the full life cycle costs for 65 F-35s would be close to $30billion. DND officials testified earlier in the week that theydidn't think his report included operating costs when thedepartment responded to it and gave its $15-billion figure. Page also said that his office understood it had been given allrelevant information on the life cycle costs from DND, as per therequest from the finance committee, but that "it has since becomeevident that the government's public figures did not includecomponents of full life cycle costs" as required by the motion. The budget officer also told MPs that the figures in Ferguson'sreport, confirmed by DND and its minister, MacKay, bring DND'sestimates for full life cycle costs in line with his own. Deputy ministers testify again Page appeared at the committee for one hour, ahead of the samedepartment officials who testified on Tuesday and who were back fora second time. On Tuesday, the deputy minister of the Department of NationalDefence, Robert Fonberg, and other DND officials criticized themethodology Page used in his report. That report sparkedcontroversy because Page's estimates for buying 65 fighter jetsfrom Lockheed Martin as part of the U.S.-led Joint Strike Fighterprogram were more than double the government's estimates. Fonberg was asked Thursday to respond to Page's statements earlierin the morning and he told MPs he stands by his belief that the PBOdid not include operating costs in his calculations. He said DNDhas found no evidence that he did and that Page has been asked forclarification but hasn't provided it yet. He also told the committee that he's unsure why Page drew theconclusion that he only received partial information from DND. "To the best of my knowledge we fully responded to the PBO'srequest," Fonberg said. Michelle d'Auray, secretary of the Treasury Board, told thecommittee that when her department considers requests from thegovernment to buy new assets, it uses a 20-year time frame forestimated costs in order to make a decision. Treasury Board has not received an approval request for the fundsto buy the F-35, she said. Fran ois Guimont, deputy minister of public works and governmentservices, again expressed his confidence in the new secretariatthat is being set up in response to Ferguson's findings to overseethe purchase of a new fleet of planes. The government said that DNDwould continue to evaluate options for replacing the CF-18s but atthe same time it named the new oversight body the F-35 Secretariat,which opposition MPs said made it clear the government is intent onbuying the Lockeed Martin model. Public Works and Government Services Minister Rona Ambroseconfirmed on Wednesday that the government has now dropped "F-35"from the group's name. Lt-Gen. Andr Deschamps, who on Tuesday said the air force ispreparing to acquire F-35s, told MPs that when DND was analyzingoptions for new planes it looked at what technology is needed torespond to future threats. He said those threats include theproliferation of advanced surface-to-air missile systems in somecountries, he didn't name which ones, and said today's aircraftaren't well-equipped to respond to the "deadly" systems. Read Kady O'Malley's live blog. Mobile-friendly feed here. With files from CBC's Laura Payton. 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