A wake-up call from the auditor general
Better oversight is needed to manage MTQ, other contracts, David Bernans says.
Transport Minister Laurent Lessard literally slept through the Highway 13 fiasco. Let’s hope the auditor general’s report tabled in the National Assembly last Wednesday will wake him up.
There is really nothing that new in the report, but in the current context of ballooning costs and crumbling infrastructure, Lessard would do well to listen to the litany of warnings that have been repeating like a broken record since the Charbonneau commission, and the Duchesneau report before that.
Back in 2011, the Duchesneau report advised the Charest government that the Ministère des Transports (MTQ) relied far too much on private firms. The MTQ paid private firms to oversee work done by other private firms, trusting various foxes to take turns guarding the henhouse.
In the wake of the report, the government decided it needed to hire about 1,000 employees to increase oversight of work sites.
Three Liberal transport ministers have slept through the slow-motion crisis. From 2015 to 2017, the number of contract management professionals at the MTQ actually decreased by 13 per cent. Recruitment efforts have undoubtedly been hampered by uncompetitive salaries and benefits.
According to the Institut de la statistique du Québec (ISQ), total compensation of Quebec government professional employees is on average 23 per cent less than that of professionals in other public bodies (such as the federal government, municipalities or government agencies). Once again, the auditor general has advised the government to invest in expertise to ensure efficient and effective contract management.
Successive ministers have tried to address problems by rolling out more and more red tape. The auditor general’s report looked at four policies, 21 directives, 45 procedures, 79 forms, a series of standards contained in four administrative documents, 46 master specifications, 11 technical guides and 29 guidance notes.
Overly complex administrative procedures, supposedly intended to ensure accountability, actually make the job of contract management that much more difficult.
Lessard and MTQ managers will undoubtedly try to blame their employees for problems, but even the former right-wing opposition leader Mario Dumont is defending government professionals. In a recent column, Dumont wrote “To accomplish this important work, there are good folks at the MTQ, dedicated employees who want things to run smoothly. However, the department’s way of doing business and an atmosphere of suspicion do not provide the conditions employees need to best accomplish their work.”
In 2015, the Charbonneau commission recommended the creation of the Autorité des marchés publics (AMP), a government body to oversee public contracts to ensure compliance with performance and ethical standards.
The government has taken steps toward the AMP’s creation; the legislation was introduced last June, but is still wending its way through the process. For the body to be effective, however, it must be irreproachably independent and impartial. Otherwise, the government will simply end up creating another government body with more red tape to hamper real reform.
The AMP’s president and CEO and vicepresidents must be appointed by the Quebec National Assembly to ensure their autonomy and to ensure that their selection process is transparent, and not merely by the government, as the legislation specifies.
Numerous stakeholders, including the Syndicat de professionnelles et professionnels du gouvernement du Quebec (SPGQ), have made this common-sense recommendation, which so far has been ignored. It is not just Lessard who needs to wake up; it is also time for Treasury Board President Pierre Moreau to see the warning signs. Moreau is responsible for rolling out the AMP and for ongoing contract bargaining with the SPGQ. To address the crisis faced by the MTQ and other government departments, Quebec needs a truly independent oversight body and it needs to invest in the expertise that is the essential precondition for efficient and effective contract management.
David Bernans is the fourth vice-president of the Syndicat de professionnelles et professionnels du gouvernement du Québec (SPGQ), which represents most professionals at the MTQ, with the exception of engineers.