N.S. Tories plan to take Liberals to court over ferry operator’s management fee
HALIFAX — Nova Scotia’s Tories will ask a court to force the provincial government to publicize details of its contract with the operator of a highly subsidized ferry, the Opposition leader announced Sunday as he called for more transparency in government.
Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Houston’s move comes after the Liberals rejected a finding from the province’s privacy commissioner in January that called on the government to release the information laid out in a 10-year deal between the private operator of the Yarmouth-to-maine ferry and the province in 2016.
“We should not have to take the government to court to find out how our taxpayer money is being spent,” Houston said as he announced that his caucus planned to file a notice of appeal on Monday morning.
The government contends there are good reasons for keeping specifics of the contract secret, saying last month that there is a “legitimate public interest in protecting the confidential commercial information of thirdparty businesses.”
Deputy Transportation Minister Paul Lafleche said at the time that the information the department does release on ridership targets, budget costs and actual final expenditures are better indicators of the ferry’s performance.
But Houston said the public has a right to know the management fee and potential bonuses paid to Bay Ferries.
“When we ask the questions about how much the deal cost and how much the management fee is, when they won’t tell us, we can’t properly assess if it’s a good deal,” he said. “We can assume, based on the fact they won’t tell us.”
He said the issue is much larger than just the ferry’s hidden contract.
Privacy commissioner Catherine Tully said last month that she wasn’t surprised that the provincial government rejected her call to reveal this information.
“We’ve seen a pattern as I reported in my annual report over the past year or two, where the government has been quite frequently rejecting recommendations for further disclosure that I make,” she said at the time.
While Tully can only make recommendations, she’s increasingly pushed for changes to the province’s privacy law to give her order-making powers.
On Sunday, Houston said he hopes the planned lawsuit will send a broader message to the Liberal government that they will be held accountable for their actions.
“The fact that the Liberal government’s withholding this information is really a symptom of the way they’ve operated with the secrecy of information, the hiding of information,” said Houston.
The Nova Scotia Liberal Party could not immediately be reached for comment Sunday.
Nicole Lafosse Parker, a lawyer for the provincial Progressive Conservative Caucus Office, said the party originally filed a Freedom of Information request for the Bay Ferries matter two years ago.