Post by Mary not logged in on Jun 29, 2007 22:28:52 GMT -5
"Why would a government resist bringing this office's scrutiny into areas costing the provincial purse tens of billions of dollars? The short answer is because it can."
That biting comment came from Ontario's ombudsman, Andre Marin, as he blasted the provincial government this week for keeping him away from a slew of potential investigations.
In his annual report, Marin said Dalton McGuinty's government refused to let his office look into complaints about municipalities, universities, school boards, hospitals, children's aid societies and other publicly funded agencies that remain immune from his scrutiny. Marin believes it is entirely due to self-interest by the government.
"If you and those who report to you have been permitted to do your work without someone looking over your shoulder, why would you want to change that?"
In the past, we've used the term "culture of secrecy" to describe how certain local publicly funded organizations have operated, conveniently for them, out of the public eye.
These organizations are run on taxpayers' money, but good luck getting detailed information out of them.
The Freedom of Information and Protection from Privacy Act forced open many a closed door. But as Marin points out, and this newspaper has done in the past, others remain closed.
For instance, in 2006, we looked into corporate credit card usage by top administrators with the municipality, both boards of education and the Chatham-Kent Health Alliance. The school boards and municipality complied, but the health alliance didn't.
Under provincial guidelines, the alliance is not required to hand over such material. It's not prohibited from doing so either, but the hospital board apparently didn't see any reason to comply; couldn't see any positive coming out of giving out the information. Our health alliance operates in the culture of secrecy for one reason because it can. And it's all thanks to provincial guidelines. Sound familiar? That's exactly how Marin describes the province's actions in keeping his office away from the publicly funded agencies currently not under his scrutiny. Taxpayers deserve more open government. Political leaders come to power pledging more openness, and consistently fail to deliver.
Stephen Harper sleeps at 24 Sussex Drive in no small part because of a pledge that he would make the federal government's operations more open and transparent if elected.
Instead, he has done everything in his power to gag rank-and-file government MPs, boots them out of the party if they vote against government ideals and ducks the media with alacrity. Some openness. There remains too much protection from scrutiny at the provincial level as well. Marin said his office received nearly 2,400 complaints last year about agencies clearly outside his purview. There are some aspects of government operations that must remain clandestine. But in a host of other areas, this must change.
It's time to stop allowing children's aid societies to hide behind guidelines in place to protect the children, and for hospitals to come out from behind rules enacted to protect patient confidentiality.
Step out into the light. It will benefit us all.
That biting comment came from Ontario's ombudsman, Andre Marin, as he blasted the provincial government this week for keeping him away from a slew of potential investigations.
In his annual report, Marin said Dalton McGuinty's government refused to let his office look into complaints about municipalities, universities, school boards, hospitals, children's aid societies and other publicly funded agencies that remain immune from his scrutiny. Marin believes it is entirely due to self-interest by the government.
"If you and those who report to you have been permitted to do your work without someone looking over your shoulder, why would you want to change that?"
In the past, we've used the term "culture of secrecy" to describe how certain local publicly funded organizations have operated, conveniently for them, out of the public eye.
These organizations are run on taxpayers' money, but good luck getting detailed information out of them.
The Freedom of Information and Protection from Privacy Act forced open many a closed door. But as Marin points out, and this newspaper has done in the past, others remain closed.
For instance, in 2006, we looked into corporate credit card usage by top administrators with the municipality, both boards of education and the Chatham-Kent Health Alliance. The school boards and municipality complied, but the health alliance didn't.
Under provincial guidelines, the alliance is not required to hand over such material. It's not prohibited from doing so either, but the hospital board apparently didn't see any reason to comply; couldn't see any positive coming out of giving out the information. Our health alliance operates in the culture of secrecy for one reason because it can. And it's all thanks to provincial guidelines. Sound familiar? That's exactly how Marin describes the province's actions in keeping his office away from the publicly funded agencies currently not under his scrutiny. Taxpayers deserve more open government. Political leaders come to power pledging more openness, and consistently fail to deliver.
Stephen Harper sleeps at 24 Sussex Drive in no small part because of a pledge that he would make the federal government's operations more open and transparent if elected.
Instead, he has done everything in his power to gag rank-and-file government MPs, boots them out of the party if they vote against government ideals and ducks the media with alacrity. Some openness. There remains too much protection from scrutiny at the provincial level as well. Marin said his office received nearly 2,400 complaints last year about agencies clearly outside his purview. There are some aspects of government operations that must remain clandestine. But in a host of other areas, this must change.
It's time to stop allowing children's aid societies to hide behind guidelines in place to protect the children, and for hospitals to come out from behind rules enacted to protect patient confidentiality.
Step out into the light. It will benefit us all.