Auditor’s report not final word on GTH fiasco

You may be surprised to learn that a word search of provincial auditor Judy Ferguson’s report on the Global Transportation Hub (GTH) and Regina Bypass land deals will not yield the words “wrong” or “wrongdoing.” It’s passing strange for the following reasons: 1. There was a tremendous amount in Ferguson’s report on both matters that could be clearly categorized as such.

What most of us would see as “wrong” in the GTH’s $21-million purchase of 204 acres of land at $103,000 an acre is her report’s observations that describe this transaction as “buying land at significantly higher price and not in a financially responsible manner” possibly because of “a unique board governance and the active involvement of the GTH chair/minister (Bill Boyd).”

2. The words “no wrongdoing” were only in Ferguson’s June news release — not in her actual report.

“No wrongdoing” is a powerful statement to be made by someone like a provincial auditor, who is exceedingly precise in what she says because she knows every word she utters matters.

3. Those words — in fact the provincial auditor herself — have now become a shield for Premier Brad Wall and his entire Sask. Party government in any discussion of the GTH land deal.

How politically absurd this now is was apparent in the legislative assembly this week when new Economy Minister Jeremy Harrison accused Opposition NDP Leader Trent Wotherspoon of coming “dangerously close” to attacking the credibility of Ferguson. Wait. It gets better. Harrison’s assertion is based on Wotherspoon quoting Ferguson’s concerns that it’s possible an outside party might have been told of the cabinet decision to sell the land for as much as $105,000 an acre.

A breach of cabinet secrecy couldn’t have happened, say Wall and Harrison, because the sale was actually for $2,000 an acre less.

The government’s own appraisal valued this land at $15,000 to $20,000 an acre a year earlier. That it wound up being sold for $103,000 an acre is the basis of Ferguson’s scathing report — one that should have produced Boyd’s immediate dismissal from cabinet in June, rather than his polite “voluntary” exit from cabinet two months later.

But listening to Wall and Harrison, one might think Ferguson’s report was an exoneration.

Well, talk to the author and you discover things are far more nuanced than that.

In an interview Friday, Ferguson bluntly explained the words “no wrongdoing” were included in the news release and not the report because she and her office specifically anticipated that question would come from reporters.

And as per her office’s mandate of monitoring and overseeing the activities of government, Ferguson said she is more than comfortable with the choice of words in her news release. “One of the things we are tasked with is to be alert to fraud and error,” Ferguson explained Friday.

But she acknowledged that her scope only extends to employees of government — something that is different even from the mandate of provincial auditors in Manitoba and Ontario, who, Ferguson explained, are allowed to “follow the money” and audit private individuals who might have dealings with government,

“I can’t audit you,” Ferguson explained, adding this reality prevented her GTH report work from looking at the private realtors, private purchasers, sellers or other private dealings separate from government.

“There are other aspects of society that deals with (assessing) if there are matters of criminality.”

Asked if her work might raise “red flags” for the RCMP, which has received complaints that have sparked at criminal investigation, Ferguson replied “maybe, possibly” but that was not for her to say. That’s hardly definite, but it’s also not exactly Wall’s assertion that the auditor says there “are no red flags.”

Ferguson added there is much in her report she knows “the government isn’t happy about” and specifically urged people to also look closer at the east-of-Regina Bypass land purchases she also addressed in her report.

“There’s a relationship between the two (GTH and east bypass) that needs to be taken into consideration,” Ferguson said.

However, whether it’s “wrongdoing” may now be up to others to decide.