The federal government has spent $4.8 billion so far on the new warships it hopes will be built starting in two years.
But National Defence has now acknowledged it doesn’t fully know the cost of maintaining and supporting the ships that will replace the navy’s Halifax-class frigates.
The new figures presented to the House of Commons provide a limited window into some of the spending so far on the Canadian Surface Combatant or CSC project. Two months ago, the parliamentary budget officer estimated the total cost of the CSC would be more than $300 billion.