Big scandal on the Prairie

Lost in the hyperventilating excitement that is the “gross negligence” of three disgraced senators and the personal misery of one big-city mayor is a Prairie scandal whose costs exponentially overshadow both shameful public circuses. As a result of an external audit of Winnipeg’s fire and paramedic station replacement program, it was determined that mismanagement and single-sourced contract awards made under the authority of the city’s recently departed chief operating officer has put the project $2.5-million over budget.

This alone far exceeds the wastrel senators’ combined expense claims (and the cost of how many pipefuls of crack cocaine?). But it has also been revealed that while the same chief bureaucrat was in office, the cost of Winnipeg’s new police headquarters ballooned from $21-million to $211-million. To put this inflated dollar figure into perspective, an overbudget of $190-million represents twice the annual operating cost of the Canadian Senate. In local terms it is the average $11,000 per household new tax Winnipeg City Hall has unashamedly requested of homeowners on what would be the future construction of their 17,273 new houses.

These staggering figures represent incompetence or worse on an unimaginable level. This may not have the salacious draw of high-profile, disgraced political entitlement, but it does prove that personal hubris and the mismanagement of public funds does not stop at the Ontario border.

Mark S. Rash, Winnipeg.