Summary of 2007 Report of Auditor General of Ontario

The latest report of the Auditor General was tabled in the Legislature Dec.11.  The Auditor General has the task of providing an independent accounting review of provincial government and BPS services. 

The Auditor’s review of selected government programs naturally covers the work done by a host of OPSEU members.  Again this year, the review and its many recommendations confirm what OPSEU has long been saying – we can’t do more with less. 

The Auditor’s offering for 2007 can be found at www.auditor.on.ca . It is a serious enough report that, yesterday, the government rushed to table a new Bill in response – improvements to Ontario sex offender registry. 

The report immediately became fodder for daily Question Period at the Legislature – from endangered wildlife to inadequate resources to oversee driver education schools, from too few inspections of hazardous waste carriers to dangerous understaffing at public health units. 

Year after year, OPSEU calls for better long term funding so that we can do our jobs and protect the public. Year after year, excuses get made by each successive government.  And year after year an independent, highly trained group of accountants at the Auditor General, with full access to the books, back us up and calls for action. Here’s a recap of this year’s findings:

• One hundred overworked staff protecting our heritage at the Ontario Archives still haven’t got the resources and capacity they need to process and store millions of historical documents

• The Centre of Forensic Sciences protects the public by conducting justice-related scientific tests of evidence such as DNA analysis. The turnaround time for this vital work is twice that of comparable forensic science labs

• Under the Development Services Program at the Ministry of Community and Social Services, beyond the obvious wage gap issue, a host of difficulties was identified – for the second time in eight years. For example, many adult group home agencies do not get their final approved budget until long after the fiscal year has ended

• A “high number of defects” were found at the privatized driver examination and licensing system formerly operated by the Ministry of Transportation.  It appears that across the province there is no consistent basis for passing or failing applicants. In many cases applicants were not required to do the whole test. Where the tests are found to be easier, applicants are traveling to these centres. (How enterprising!)

• The Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care cannot adequately monitor 90 million drug prescriptions at 3,000 pharmacies to address the risk related to ineligible claims. The Ministry can review just 3 per cent of dispensaries each year. At one drug dispensing agency alone, an inspection found over a quarter of a million dollars in overpayments.

• At the Ministry of Natural Resources (see related OPSEU press release) the Auditor reports that there is not sufficient funds for enforcement to protect Ontario’s fish and wildlife resources.

• At the Ministry of Environment, because of substandard computer resources the collection, treatment and disposal of hazardous waste are not properly monitored or inspected. Staff is being hampered to the point that by January this year, half of applications by waste carriers were still in the assessment stage after one year.  Since 2002, no inspection has occurred at 11 of the 30 largest hazardous waste producing facilities in the province.

• Reviewing programs under the Ministry of Health and Long Term Care, the Auditor reported 12 per cent of operating rooms were not used most weekdays last year and more care is needed to ensure that medications for long term care residents are properly administered particularly high-risk drugs. 

• Still on MHLTC, it was discovered that Ontario remained unprepared for another large-scale infectious disease outbreak. Close to 100 ministry public health jobs, some deemed critical for emergencies, are vacant and Public Health Units have generally not established the 750 temporary influenza assessments required to relieve hospitals

• The Sex Offender Registry, run by the OPP, was examined and many problems were uncovered including the fact that 365 provincial offenders were not on the list and 1,000 offenders in federal custody were not registered when the system was first set up.

• The Ministry of Revenue (responsible for collecting billions of the dollars needed to keep the public sector functioning) cannot ensure the registration of vendors who charge sales taxes. Outstanding sales taxes were almost $1-billion last year – enough to pay for three new public hospitals – and about 35,000 retailers had not submitted the provincial sales tax they owed to government coffers.

• The 2006 backlog of necessary maintenance work at Ontario universities was about $1.6 billion.