This news item from CBC Ottawa highlights one thing that drives me nuts. Aside the fact that 5 million is alleged to have gone to political friends is the fact that apparently the contracts are not voidable based on being untendered under a system requiring tendering. Public purchasing systems - like the one I happily work within and work with others to improve - which are based on sensible and open processes are the only way to provide competition, value and a lack of essence of quel que chose. They are not rocket science and can even take into account flexibility and even privilege while ensuring the market defines who does the work for best value. Contrarians always say things like this:
A former conservative energy minister, John Baird, says there's nothing wrong with Hydro One signing these sorts of contracts with well-known Tories. Baird says they're well respected consultants. He says they actually did the work, unlike some of the people involved in the federal sponsorship scandal.If there had been a public procurement process there would be no need to recourse to such banality to explain such nice round figures on the cheques. With so much of the news from coast to coast being about budget shortfalls, I wonder how much is just over spending due to lack of proper systems preventing such ad hoc selections. If you want to read about a real nightmare of this sort, check out Freedom & Whisky's on-going coverage of the spiraling cost of building a Parliament for Scotland.
Comments
SayNay? - February 24, 2004 7:22 pm
You are absolutely bang on, on this one, Al! (Did you ever expect to hear that from me?) Take one of these guys who got a $1M - Tom Long - and look at his resume. This guy's CV should bear the title "Tory Hack a.k.a Tom Long". He's been active in Conservative politics since he could talk. People wonder why other people get into politics - he's your example: anything this guy has is directly related someway to his "political" connections, and decades at the trough. And the $1M from Hydro One, well, that's just another pay day - he's been laying the ground work for this kind of pay off for years. Cha-Ching!-it's must be extemely gratifying for him to see all that "hard" work pay off. Perhaps he has some debts to pay off from his failed Alliance/Conservative Leadership bid (signing up members in Quebec costs money, apparently, even if they're dead).
And I don't see the McGuinty Liberals getting fired up over this one. I wonder why? Probably because there too busy building more electric fast-feeding troughs for their porkers. And the NDP, well, maybe they'd tender the contracts but you're left with the impression that some new age wacko consulting firms (that believe, for instance, that group hypnosis of Ontario hydro ratepayers is the answer to reduce consumption) and with NDP ties, of course would get the contracts.
I disagree with you on one point, however. The Liberals can fix this, if they want to. The Gov't of Ont. is the only shareholder of Hydro One - maybe it's time to call a shareholders meeting.