Second-hand subs

The Canadian Taxpayers Federation has a long, long memory. Indeed, while most of the CTF's awards were given for government waste that happened within the last year, its Teddy handed to the Department of National Defence has been an affair more than a decade in the making. Last October, the CBC broke the news that four second-hand submarines purchased from the British navy 13 years earlier were being considered for decommissioning. In 1998, labelled a bargain at the time, the Canadian government bought the four subs for $750 million, though the marine units have since spent nearly all their time in naval repair yards, racking up more than $1 billion in costs to our nation's taxpayers. The CBC reported last fall that the Harper government was considering buying new nuclear submarines to replace the aging British fleet.

* Bing: Who was the Prime Minister that bought the British subs?