Click here to download this issue in .pdf  

“This employer can’t seem to do anything right. This government’s ham-fisted attempts at privatization just prove OPSEU’s case - that public services are a bargain. The Provincial Auditor’s report says our members are the experts and shows we are right once again.”
-OPSEU President Leah Casselman

OPSEU’s criticism of the Ministry’s plans to privatize Driver Examination Centres (DECs) has been vindicated by the Provincial Auditor.

In his annual report, Auditor Erik Peters looked closely at the functions of the Ministry of Transportation (MTO) and its Road User Safety Program and found many problems with the way the Ministry is managed.

MTO’s plans for Alternative Service Delivery came under particular criticism.

Peters said his staff were not given proper access to resources within the Ministry. This has prompted opposition calls for an OPP investigation. Nevertheless, he was able to issue scathing commentary on the way management operates.

Peters said MTO did not even live up to the Conservative government’s own standards for privatizations.

Here are some excerpts from his report on the Ministry’s plan to privatize the DECs.

“The Ministry paid a consultant more than $1 million to prepare a business case for alternative service delivery, but the Consultant told the Auditor that, although the business case had been started, it was not completed at the Ministry’s request. Since the objective of the assignment was not achieved, the money spent on the consulting contract was not well spent. In addition, not preparing a business case before undertaking an outsourcing initiative is contrary to principles that the Management Board of Cabinet has outlined in its Alternative Service Delivery Framework.”

In other words, this government is so dead set on their ideological goals they haven’t even taken the time to cover themselves with facts and figures. Here’s more:

“The financial information presented to the Cabinet Committee on Privatization and SuperBuild to support the Ministry’s calculations and demonstrate the financial prudence of the licence option was taken from the unfinished business case. Nowhere in the portions of the submission we received was this limitation noted. Consequently, we are concerned that the Committee based key decisions for this initiative on incomplete information.”

Further, they still don’t know what this scheme will cost the public.

MTO told the Auditor the business case for privatization would be completed when the successful bidder was selected. The Auditor said this was going about things the wrong way round. “We question the prudence of making important decisions, such as selecting a service delivery option, without sufficient information and without a complete business case.”

Case closed. But to make it worse, they tried to run and hide from the Auditor:

“. . .the Ministry only provided us with partial information and did so only after our audit was completed.” MTO did not give the Auditor the proof it had a valid case for privatization.

The Auditor also caught MTO pushing ahead without proper planning and with incomplete documentation. What’s the rush?

Difficulties and delays

The Auditor said MTO management made it very difficult for his staff to gain access to public information and files they requested. Information was altered, deleted, and left incomplete meaning the Auditor had to go through great lengths to do its job. Staff were not allowed to be interviewed, in some cases, without a supervisor present.

Management . . . hindered the audit process and, despite repeated requests for access to original or supporting documentation, did not provide complete information for this audit.”

NDP Calls for criminal investigation

The Ontario NDP called for an OPP criminal investigation of MTO’s stonewalling and altering of documents given to the Auditor. The Ontario NDP called for an OPP criminal investigation of MTO’s stonewalling and altering of documents given to the Auditor.

They say former Minister David Turnbull must be held accountable if police find wrongdoing.

“We have reviewed his comments as they apply to the Criminal Code and believe a police investigation is warranted,” said MPP Peter Kormos.

The NDP cited criminal fraud and breach of trust provisions in Sections 122, 366 and 397 of the Criminal Code. Making a material alteration in a genuine document by erasure, obliteration, removal constitutes forgery, he said.

To read the Auditor’s 2001 report on the web, please see: http://www.gov.on.ca/opa/  

What’s the rush?

“The Ministry hired 280 (new staff up to Jan.) 2001 at a cost of $10.3 million to reduce the lengthy waiting time for drivers’ road tests and then opted for outsourcing driver testing without a completed business case to support this decision.

The Ministry did not properly manage millions of dollars worth of consultants’ work—often without following a competitive tendering process and bypassing relevant Management Board of Cabinet directives.

The Ministry ineffectively managed its private issuers such that issuers were not sufficiently being held accountable for cash management, commissions charged, and stock like licence plates and renewal validation tags.”

- from the 2001 Auditor’s Report

Authorized for distribution:
Leah Casselman, president.