Who’s afraid of oversight?

The Ford government reduced the number of independent legislative officers by a third in last week’s fall economic update, tossing the watchdogs for children, francophone services and the environment right out the window.

And Ontario Finance Minister Vic Fedeli went on to claim this would actually improve oversight of these vital functions since they will now be consolidated in the offices of the auditor general and ombudsman.

Quite obviously, that’s not the case. The auditor general’s specialty is determining value-for-money, not measuring the government’s actions on reducing greenhouse gas emissions and protecting waterways. And the ombudsman’s office is a complaint-based system while the child advocate has (or had) a far more proactive role in protecting and improving the lives of vulnerable children.

But possibly even more concerning than Fedeli’s absurd suggestion that this is good news for independent oversight are comments from Lisa MacLeod, the minister of children, community and social services. “I can assure everyone in this Legislature that the fiercest child advocate in this province will be me,” McLeod said last Thursday, the day the cut was announced. She repeated that sentiment again this week.

It shows her complete and utter lack of understanding of the most basic principle behind independent oversight.

The minister certainly should be advocating for children. At any given time she is responsible for the well-being of more than 10,000 of them in foster care and group homes alone. But the role of an independent watchdog is to shine a light on the things that fall through the cracks — in spite of the government’s best efforts.

And in the case of Irwin Elman, whose term as child advocate ends on Friday, what falls through the cracks are the most vulnerable children in our province. These are the kids who have already been taken from their families and placed in care, Indigenous children and youth asking for help and kids who are living with disabilities, receiving mental health services or caught up in the youth justice system.

To suggest all that can be transferred seamlessly to the provincial ombudsman, whose office is currently being flooded with complaints about the Ontario Cannabis Store, is ludicrous. Now, the issues of vulnerable children will get lumped into the same annual report that, last time, covered everything from police de-escalation training and tracking inmates in segregation units to unfairly billing a woman for bylaw enforcement costs in the County of Lambton.

To be sure, child advocate’s reports rarely offer any government good news. But a government that cares about doing the right thing, not just seeming to do so, should want to hear it. Ontario, the largest province with the most vulnerable kids, now stands as one of the only provinces without an independent child advocate. And when a government that spends most days talking about the imperative to save money can’t even say what cutting the child advocate — or the environmental commissioner and French-language services commissioner for that matter — will save taxpayers, it suggests that this is being done for another purpose.

Premier Doug Ford, it seems, likes the idea of independent reporting only when it suits his own ends. Ford and his ministers were quick to seize on the recent report of another legislative watchdog, the financial accountability officer, which estimated how much a typical household would have paid in additional costs under Ontario’s now-cancelled capand-trade program and federal plans to impose a carbon tax on provinces that don’t put their own price on carbon.

And they happily spent taxpayer money on an independent financial commission and external review of spending trying to find new ways and new things to blame on the former Wynne Liberal government.

And yet the Ford government’s decision to cut three legislative officers shows that it’s all too keen to silence the voices that could point to their own shortcomings.

Ontario now stands as one of the only provinces without an independent child advocate