DALTON MCGUINTY’S TWO SETS
OF RULE BOOKS
One
for the public service, another for the politicians
(Queen’s
Park) – Dalton McGuinty has two sets of standards – one for the public
service and another for his Liberal friends.
When
it comes to misdeeds in the public service, McGuinty doesn’t hesitate to
bring down the guillotine.
But
what happens when it’s a Liberal that gets into trouble?
McGuinty
stonewalls, deflects, and tries to change the channel.
That’s
what happened with the $32 million slush fund at Citizenship and
Immigration where McGuinty ignored more than 270 questions and repeated
calls to bring in the Auditor General to review the slush fund that saw
money go to his Liberal friends.
This
includes the Iranian Canadian Community Centre, a group that received
$200,000 and had on its board an Ontario Liberal candidate, an Ontario
Liberal riding president, a friend of Greg Sorbara, a former senior
staffer to George Smitherman, and a handful of patronage appointment
recipients.
It
includes the Chinese Professionals Association of Canada, a group that
received $275,000 and had on its board a senior staffer in the office of
former Citizenship and Immigration minister Mike Colle as well as a number
of members who attended a fundraiser for Colle.
It
wasn’t until after McGuinty had exhausted all his options for
stonewalling that the Auditor was allowed to investigate the slush fund.
But
still the stonewalling continues.
Serious
questions have been raised about the entire $2.7 billion in year-end
spending done by the McGuinty government over the last two years –
spending that the Auditor has repeatedly expressed concerns about.
Dalton
McGuinty refuses to allow an investigation into his government’s
spending practices.
He
also refuses to allow his Minister of Finance and Campaign Chair, Greg
Sorbara to answer questions about his role in the slush fund scandal. The
Auditor’s report showed that Sorbara’s office was intimately involved
in the approval of these unconditional grants.
Some
of the questions we have for Sorbara include:
1.
Did Greg Sorbara direct Mike Colle to set
up this grant program?
2.
Which of the grants originated in
Sorbara’s office?
3.
Why didn’t Sorbara put the brakes on
this slush fund after the Deputy Minister of Citizenship and Immigration
raised concerns about the “sketchy information” on so many of these
groups?
4.
Were the problems raised by the civil
servants about these groups ever discussed at the cabinet table as these
grants were being approved?
5.
The Auditor General wrote in his report
that “…each individual year-end grant was reviewed and, in some cases
adjusted by the Ministry of Finance to ensure that the government’s
overall policy and fiscal priorities were met.” Will Sorbara admit that
he was reviewing these in his role as campaign chairman and he was really
looking to ensure that the Ontario Liberal Party’s partisan and
political priorities were met?
6.
On March 8, 2007, the list of grant
recipients was adjusted based on conversations with Sorbara’s office.
What were the adjustments? Who was added? Who was deleted?
7.
Will Sorbara admit that the $200,000 to
the Iranian Canadian Community Centre was to help his friends, including
the Ontario Liberal candidate in Richmond Hill?
8.
Why was the $200,000 cheque for the
Iranian group mailed to the home of his friend, Bohran Fouladi?
9.
Will Sorbara agree to a full audit of his
government’s $2.7 billion year-end spending?
10.
Ontarians deserve to have a finance
minister who will look after their interests and ensure that their tax
dollars are spent prudently and properly. Will Sorbara explain why he let
that responsibility take a back seat to his aims as chair of the Ontario
Liberal Party election campaign?
All
of these tie back to the question of leadership.
Will
Dalton McGuinty rise to the challenge and ask the Auditor for a review of
the entire $2.7 billion in year-end spending?
Will
he allow Greg Sorbara to answer questions about his role in this scandal?
If,
as McGuinty says, future behaviour can be predicted by past behaviour, the
answer is not likely.
