PALMER: PUBLIC INQUIRY MAY POSE PROBLEMS
Slow and costly: A better route might be through the office of the provincial ombudsman
At about the same time the victims of the Health Ministry firings put the finishing touches on a call for a public inquiry this week, the B.C. Liberals voiced reservations about the costs and delays of going that route.
“What is the question that is to be answered by an inquiry that, generally speaking, will involve the expenditure of millions upon millions of dollars?” Finance Minister Mike de Jong replied Tuesday when reporters sought his response to calls for a public inquiry.
“What I’m doing now is looking at how we can share as much info, disclose as much info, as legally allowed and make sure we really come up with some answers in a very timely and cost effective way,” Premier Christy Clark said in response to much the same question.
Neither is without political self-interest in fending off a public inquiry.
Clark fuelled the calls by promising last year to “get to the bottom” of the reasons for the firings, then appointing an enfeebled review that did nothing of the kind.
De Jong would surely be called as a witness at any inquiry, having served as health minister right up to the day before the firings, when he was switched to his current portfolio.
Still, they are right about the potential for costs and delays with a fullblown public inquiry — the kind with open hearings, everyone lawyered up at public expense and the possibility of court challenges to the mandate and powers of the inquiry commissioner.
The don’t-go-there precedent was provided by the NDP government of the 1990s, which ordered a public inquiry into the skimming of proceeds from charity bingos by its own fundraising arm and others. Launched in 1996, the inquiry had yet to complete its work when the NDP was driven from office five years later. This, after six cabinet-granted extensions to the timeline, the expenditure of $6 million (mostly on legal fees), and an ongoing court challenge brought by two Social Credit-era public servants who objected to the commission’s plans to publicly criticize them for actions taken in the 1980s.
Rather than prolong the proceedings and the billable hours, the incoming Liberal government terminated the bingo inquiry. The Liberals also diluted their own campaign promise to commission a public inquiry into the over-budget fast ferry project.
“Never again,” became the Liberal vow, particularly in the face of multiple calls for an inquiry into their broken-promise sale in 2003 of government-owned BC Rail. The New Democrats continued to press for one, most recently in the 2013 election platform when they budgeted $10 million and two years for the promised judicial inquiry.
Both targets were hypothetical, but even if an NDP government had hit them, the findings would have been released a dozen years after the sale and with most of the key players long gone from public life.
The main driver of costs and delays with inquiries is the public portion. Every current and former public servant who might be criticized in the hearings or the findings is entitled to seek legal representation at public expense, and many will obtain it.
Many of those lawyers will exercise their right to challenge or otherwise examine witnesses at the hearings. They may also seize openings to challenge the commission itself in court, leading to delays even if they fail.
I witnessed some of this first-hand during the bingo inquiry. I was struck by the dozen or so lawyers who were there in the hearing room, maintaining a watching brief on behalf of various current or former public servants. Just the introductions consumed the better part of a billable hour.
Happily, there are other options for getting answers and holding the government to account. The keys are independence, coupled with the ability to seek documents, summon witnesses, take testimony under oath, then to write a report that lets the chips fall where they may.
The independent officers of the legislature have the power to do all that and they exercise those powers whenever the need arises. They do so without the spectacle of public hearings and report back to the legislature in timely fashion.
Granted, they sometimes incur substantial legal billings as well, though rarely to the extent of a public inquiry. In most instances, they complete their work on budget and in a matter of months.
Mindful of those possibilities, there have been suggestions — from Health Minister Terry Lake among others — to call in the auditor general on the health firings.
In an open letter to Lake Wednesday, seven fired researchers and the sister of an eighth who killed himself expressed a “strong preference” against the auditor general because of the office’s role in passing on the whistleblower complaint that led to the firings in the first place.
Happily, there is another option, namely the provincial ombudsman. The leading precedent for that office to inquire into allegations of government wrongdoing was set back in the 1980s when then-ombudsman Stephen Owen reached some damning findings on political interference in the awarding of a pub licence on Knight Street in Vancouver.
The current ombudsman, Jay Chalke, a former assistant deputy attorney general, was appointed just a few weeks ago on the unanimous recommendation and with glowing testimonials from both the government and the Opposition.
His office has all the necessary powers and independence to get to the bottom of things. All the Liberals need do is ask him to determine what happened and why, then get out of the way.