Secrecy surrounds recovery fund spending

Ten months after recovery fund approved, details about how it's being spent are lacking

The New Democrats released an update on provincial finances on Thursday that said little about how they have been spending the $1.5-billion economic recovery fund approved by the legislature nine months ago.

The fund was put through the house in a single day, March 23, with the unanimous support of New Democrats, Greens and B.C. Liberals.

The money was to be used “to implement the province's plan for economic recovery related to the impacts of COVID-19.”

In those heady days of all-party co-operation in the fight against COVID-19, there was little anticipation about what a plan for economic recovery from the pandemic might entail.

Still, the Liberals and Greens didn't foresee how the New Democrats would use and abuse the blank cheque voted that day.

For starters, the government was in no rush to say how the money would be spent. Instead, it launched into lengthy consultations with interest groups and the public, all the while ducking media questions about the recovery fund.

When the legislature resumed for a summer session, the stonewalling continued. Financial updates came and went in July and again in early September, with still no details about the $1.5 billion.

Then on Sept. 17, Premier John Horgan and then-finance minister Carole James took the wraps off the plan the house had approved six months earlier. Some three dozen economic recovery initiatives were now wrapped into a larger mix of old and new measures for managing and overcoming the pandemic.

Together, these were repackaged as Stronger B.C., which sounded like an election slogan — there being no end to rumours that Horgan was preparing to call one.

But when the premier was asked if Stronger B.C. was a prelude to an election, he ducked with the same brazen cynicism that had characterized his evasions on that score for weeks.

“I've not made a decision about an election,” he claimed. “I know people would like to hear something different, but we're just starting a very long journey that we have to take together.”

Not that long a journey, actually. Four days later, on Sept. 21, Horgan launched the province into a five-week election campaign.

The economic recovery fund, voted by all parties in the legislature, was thereby transformed into the first plank in the NDP election platform. Such are the wages of good-faith co-operation with John Horgan.

These matters stood until the election was over, the results certified, the government reorganized, the new cabinet appointed, and the house recalled for the brief session that ended Thursday.

Questions were asked on behalf of sectors that had expected recovery funds for weeks and in some cases months before.

The holdups contradicted what Horgan had said back in September, when he was asked several times if an election call would mean that the economic recovery funding would be frozen for the duration of the campaign. Not at all, he insisted.

“These dollars are approved, the increase in the budget was ratified in the legislature. The treasury board, which keeps tabs on government spending in the interests of the public, has gone through every chapter. The monies are approved, ratified, and they're going out the door as quickly as possible,” the premier told reporters.

“The job of implementing this has been done. Now it's up to the professional public service,” he continued.

“It was critically important to us that this not be a dribs and drabs (rollout), which I've seen … in other provinces.”

But with the election over, it appears that the full $1.5-billion recovery fund did not “go out the door” as quickly as the premier suggested.

Nor was there any accounting for what was and was not spent with Thursday's belated release (it was due Nov. 30) of the financial update for the second quarter of the budget year.

Finance Minister Selina Robinson provided only a passing mention of the economic recovery fund, saying it went “to support training and job creation, community stimulus, and business supports, investments in clean technology, and funding to improve food security and economic resilience.”

Not what one would call full disclosure, considering that the finance minister was talking about the disposition of $1.5 billion in public funds voted by the legislature 10 months earlier.

Technically, she had an excuse. The quarterly financial report only covered up to the end of Sept. 30, and Stronger B.C. was launched on Sept. 17.

Still, if the public service were as active in getting the money out the door as the premier claimed, surely the finance minister could provide a preliminary breakdown. No such luck.

“We'll continue to report out to British Columbians as we go forward,” said Robinson when pressed. “We think it's really important that people understand the actions that we're taking and how we're continuing to deliver.”

How were people supposed to understand the actions her government was taking in the absence of the slightest detail of how the money had been spent and how much remained to be spent?

“Money has been rolling out the door in numerous programs since the beginning,” she claimed. “Things are moving forward and quite swiftly.”

Not to mention in total secrecy. The next financial update is postponed to April 20 with release of the next provincial budget.

By then, the $1.5 billion voted by the legislature for the financial year ending March 31 will be spent or not spent, as the New Democrats see fit.

Surely the finance minister could provide a preliminary breakdown. No such luck.