Star’s view: AG’s report reveals the PCs are making problems worse,
Ontario Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk’s tome of an annual report released this week laid plenty of criticism firmly at the feet of the last Liberal government.
She called them out for lax oversight of some programs and the dubious cost-effectiveness of others. Of particular note is what she had to say about the cost of political interference. Lysyk’s concerns related to the political interference at Metrolinx that altered transit priorities and drove up costs by more than $400 million over the past decade.
“This type of mismanagement ends right here, right now,” Treasury Board President Peter Bethlenfalvy said of the auditor’s findings.
If only that were true. Premier Doug Ford and his Progressive Conservatives are busy making these problems worse, not better. Take Hydro One, for example. Ford blustered his way through the election promising to get rid of Mayo Schmidt, the so-called “six-million-dollar man” who was then Hydro One’s CEO, and simplistically suggesting that would help reduce electricity bills.
Now we know that promise essentially killed Hydro One’s multibillion-dollar takeover of U.S. energy company Avista Corp. And that will cost Hydro One — and by extension the taxpayers who own half the company — well over $100 million in termination fees and penalties, not to mention reduced share value.
Regulators in Washington state blocked the takeover this week, having decided that political interference in Hydro One by the Ford government made the deal too risky to approve. And who can blame them? He’s still not done.
Having forced Schmidt to retire and the last Hydro board to resign, reports indicate that Ford is pushing for his choice for Hydro One CEO over the new board’s shortlist of candidates.
And for those counting, the new chief executive is likely to be in the ballpark of a four-million-dollar man, so when all the costs of getting rid of Schmidt are factored in Ontario is even further in the hole — thanks to Ford.
Mistakes start to accumulate for every government of every political stripe the longer they’re in power. Some are honest policy missteps, others the result of political hubris. The Wynne and McGuinty Liberals had 15 years to accumulate a little of both. But in just over five months Ford’s mistakes born of meddling have covered an astonishing amount of ground.
In the last week alone, his penchant for hiring and firing has brought into disrepute no less than the head of the OPP, the country’s second-largest police force, and cost the province tens of millions along with its reputation as a serious place to do business.
Worse still, Ford is unrepentant about all of it, which suggests he intends to continue down this path.
“I will never apologize for keeping my promises to the voters,” Ford said after news broke of the scuppered Hydro One deal and its associated costs.
Voters must be wondering what promise he thinks he’s keeping. Ford said he would ferret out government waste and Liberal insiders. But so far all he’s done is drive up costs and create uncertainty in the private sector, and used his position as premier to settle personal grudges and take unprecedented steps to get his own insiders into positions of power.
When Lysyk’s report was released on Wednesday, NDP Leader Andrea Horwath saw it not only as condemnation of the last Liberal government but as an ominous warning of where Ontario is headed under the Ford government.
Political interference comes with costs. And Ford’s short time in office has been replete with reckless moves to rip up contracts, get rid of people he doesn’t like and install his allies in key positions. And, as Horwath said, he’s “leaving families to pay the bill.”
Ford and his yes-men gaggle of ministers don’t see it. Thankfully, others do. But to avoid having to answer for this in question period, the Ford government passed a motion to adjourn the legislature a week early. They won’t be back until the middle of February.
Is this what a government for the people looks like?