MURRAY MANDRYK

Provincial auditor can only go so far without framework for comparison

It’s not as if there weren’t issues of importance in the second volume of Provincial Auditor Judy Ferguson’s 2018 report released Tuesday.

There is tremendous value in alerting the public that “Regina and Saskatoon labs took considerably longer than good practice to analyze biopsies” and that the Saskatchewan Health Authority (SHA) “has not formally determined why” such tests, which identify cancer, are taking so long.

Similarly important is that the SHA “should rethink its approach to monitoring compliance with hand hygiene” because Regina hospitals are not consistently following health ministry guidelines.

Ferguson’s report even noted a need for “better processes to maintaining certain Saskpower aboveground power assets” — sage, if not understated, advice for a province that last week suffered through its biggest power outage in four decades.

The work of the modern-day auditor must delve into the minutiae of public policy in search of tax dollar cost efficiencies. Sometimes that involves the smaller issues and sometimes it involves the bigger ones.

And it’s not as if the auditor has ignored the big-ticket problems of the Saskatchewan Party government like the Global Transportation Hub (GTH) and the Regina bypass.

Still, the standard for credibly assessing what went wrong at the GTH is Ferguson’s special June 2016 report in which she wrote that the $21-million purchase of 204 acres showed “the GTH’S unique board governance along with the active involvement of the GTH Chair/minister (former economy minister Bill Boyd) ... contributed to buying this land at a significantly higher price and not in a financially responsible manner.”

And what’s sometimes lost is that this very same report also took square aim at the Regina bypass and “found that the Ministry did not take sufficient steps to reduce exposure to increased land values during its planning for the Regina Bypass Project.” That included failing to “actively explore or consider the suitability of alternate purchasing strategies to manage potential increases in land values.”

Interestingly, that conclusion came just two years after her 2014 report when she determined bypass land purchases were in order.

It demonstrates how assessments do change. At the time of her 2014 bypass assessment, the bypass cost was pegged at an estimated $400 million, but vaulted to $1.2 billion by the time her June 2016 report was released. Today, the bypass price tag is just shy of $1.9 billion.

Yet we heard Highways Minister Lori Carr repeatedly tell us that skyrocketing costs are insignificant to the taxpayers because the project scope changed (partly because of the GTH) and the public-private partnership is magically absorbing all the costs.

Similarly, the Sask. Party government has spent much of the past two and a half years hiding behind Ferguson’s “no wrongdoing” words, which don’t actually appear in her 2016 report or even in her press release on the subject matter. Now, combined with the conclusion of the extended RCMP investigation/manitoba prosecutors review this summer that did not produce criminal charges, we hear Justice and GTH Minister Don Morgan tell us that GTH matters are resolved.

Far too many questions remain. It would be a disservice to taxpayers if this is where the conversation ended.

Since Ferguson’s 2016 report (which she readily acknowledges was not a forensic audit) we’ve had umpteen other GTH questions, including unsold and undeveloped land, the cost of Loblaw’s land and what value taxpayers should expect for the GTH if the government sells it.

Shouldn’t we at least see a cost-benefit analysis of the GTH and Regina bypass? Unfortunately, Ferguson said Tuesday she doubts she can provide that because there never was a framework to properly judge what the GTH or bypass costs should have been.

That leaves either a forensic audit or a public inquiry — both of which remain under the purview of a Sask. Party government that’s already blocked requests for civil servants to appear before legislative committees.

While Ferguson noted Tuesday that she works for the legislature and the taxpayers, it appears the auditor believes her work can only go so far.

It would be a disservice to taxpayers if this is where the conversation ended.