I'm Not There To Help You

I am no fan of the Ford Government and do believe that the Provincial Auditor’s blunt comments have been proven to be true, time and again. However, people need to understand the relationship of the Provincial Auditor with the government of the day; it is adversarial and intended to be so. Unlike the internal audit groups that work within ministries and are responsible for improving operations with a value for money approach, the Provincial Auditor is an Officer of the Legislature and is charged with uncovering gross inefficiencies in government operations and examples of fiduciary abuse. More recently (thank you Uncle Dalton), the Provincial Auditor has also been allowed to comment on policy – an area that was previously not within the Office’s terms of reference.

In short, the Provincial Auditor is ‘not there to help the government’ in any direct, constructive sense; the Office exists to represent the people of Ontario and expose government abuse and malfeasance. So, the Annual Report is never a love letter; it is a long litany of perceived operational or policy issues, examples of gross incompetence and areas of serious neglect. The more egregious and damning the findings, the better. And those ministries/agencies that hit the ‘top 10 spotlight’ know that they will be doing the ‘dual fandango’ of Estimates and Public Accounts in the very near future.

I would be far more concerned if the Annual Report was tempered or complimentary. Such would suggest an unhealthy alliance between the government and the Provincial Auditor and an absence of the critical oversight that the latter performs. It would have echoes of the ‘cozy and self-serving relationships’ that seem to be developing between the various checks and balance governance entities south of our border. Such are indeed existential threats to democracy and the common good.

So, closer to home but equally "cozy" and contrived - what I have found since the Meed Ward administration took office in Burlington is that communications are very cunningly and adroitly handled. Only news that is beneficial to Council gets reported and even the worst missteps are couched in campaign rhetoric. Worse, however, is that there is no ‘positive tension’ in the system; Council is a group of willing, self-interested enablers who bolster a Ford anointed Strong Mayor Queen. There is no official opposition or chamber of sober second thought, no recall protocol or even term limits to confine the tremendous damage that can be done. The avenues of public complaint and redress are a total farce – the City Integrity Commissioner, the City Auditor and the City Ombudsman. Hired guns all who serve on contract ‘at the pleasure’ of Council. Repeatedly their findings have found the City harmless and often their reviews have seemed to defy common sense and perhaps common law. A standard tactic, it appears, is to base rulings on a very narrowly defined scope of inquiry – such as that employed with the recent Bay Observer complaint. The same has been true of several IC and Ombudsman exercises. When it suits, the field of inquiry is as narrow as the fine line between due diligence and complicity. Everything becomes the exact letter of the law or knife edge interpretation while the spirit, the intent, is trampled and lost.

I believe that true oversight can never exist when the relationship between examined and examiner is that of employer and employee

. True oversight dies within ‘a spirit of co-operation and collaboration’. It never even lives when the livelihood of the overseer depends on the goodwill and purse-strings of the overseen.