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Monday FEBRUARY 14, 2005 |
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INQUIRING THE INQUIRY
by Angelo Persichilli
THE HILL TIMES (Versione
italiana)
We should ask the government to
create an inquiry to conduct an inquiry into the high number of Canadian
inquiries, and, more specifically, how they’re run.
To date, there
have been more than 440 commissions in the history of this country. Most are
long-running and expensive. And the results are not always very forthcoming.
Usually, Canada
creates commissions of inquiries when there is something wrong in government
operations, and, most of the time, when money is involved.
In particular,
the commissions look at instances when the governments fund projects without
strict rules for spending money, without setting a timeline to finish the
job, without a mechanism to control the advancement of the job and without
the final results and accomplishments.
Basically,
inquiries are supposed to seek to find out if the Canadian public gets the
bang for their buck.
There is an
inquiry going on in Toronto right now. It was started when Mel Lastman was
the mayor and it was created to find out why a $44-million contract to a
Mississauga computer company sky-rocketed to $100-million-and-change,
without the approval of the council.
Last time I
checked, they were still interrogating people and the cost was already over
$20-million, and counting. Call me crazy, but how can an inquiry into a
contract that didn’t respect the approved funding not know in advance how
much money it needs to find out that question?
Then there’s the
Gomery Inquiry. I’m not questioning the ability or professionalism of the
people involved in the highly- publicized Gomery Inquiry, but, I am
questioning how it’s run. After the games of show-and-don’t-tell of last
week and after making front-page headlines nearly every day, the Gomery
Inquiry will likely return to page 47 of most newspapers and off the
newscasts’ line-up until someone will once again put their proverbial balls
on the table.
So far, we saw
former Prime Minister Jean Chrétien defending the past, and current Prime
Minister Paul Martin protecting the future.
But what do we
know now about the $100-million mentioned by Auditor General Sheila Fraser?
Not much more.
What we do know
is that already another $60-million, and, most likely, $100-million will be
spent to try to get to the bottom of this. So, if I understand correctly, we
spend $100-million to find out who mismanaged $100-million? Does it make
sense?
But wait, they
are going to tell us who stole the money and that we will punish them.
Right? Wrong. First, Judge Gomery can’t send anybody to jail. So what will
the taxpayers get from the $100-million? Jean Chrétien is saying that the
$100-million was used to save the country. Is he right? Who knows? But I
don’t even know what I’m going to get in return for the other $100-million
from the Gomery inquiry.
Yes, they are
going to tell us that the political system is corrupt. Wow, big news. The
question is: will they tell us something we don’t know already? Are they
going to tell us something different from what the Auditor General already
denounced and from what an RCMP investigation is going to find out pretty
soon? In the meantime, the lawyers will keep asking boring questions to the
former president of something, while the clock is ticking. So how much will
the final bill be? And, more importantly, why is it going to be so high?
They might tell us $100-million and we don’t even flinch.
With $100-million
we can build two hospitals and, just to have an idea, we sent $1.17-million
in military supplies to Sudan, including 2,200 body-armoured vests and
helmets. We're also contributing $2.5-million to the World Food Program in
Sudan.
So, with less
than $5-million, Canada can help to save hundreds of children in Sudan and
make their army stronger but we need $100-million for a commission? Where
are the big expenses? What are the lawyers billing? What are the criteria
for choosing the legal firm? Are we choosing those that offer a better
price, or, did they all just ask for the best? If it is the latter, who says
so? Who establishes what a fair honorarium is for lawyers? How much is the
one-hour legal counseling costs? Again, is it a competitive process or are
we just paying the bills? Is this the way it works only for the law firms
or, say, for the communication firms as well? If the answer is no, why? Of
course, we want to know if the $100- million for sponsorship, or future
boondoggles, are properly spent and, if there are people stealing public
money, put in jail.
But, at the same
time, we know that the purpose of the whole exercise is to avoid that
governments give a mandate to someone with an open chequebook; no time
limitation for the job to be done; no criteria to hire people or
subcontracting; and no guarantees for results.
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