After 10 years as Ontario’s Auditor General, Jim McCarter has delivered his final report; a slim scathing look into waste and mismanagement of the relocation of the Mississauga gas plant.
“I’ll miss you,” said McCarter wrapping up his press conference, where once again he stayed and took every last question, no matter how uninformed or leading.
It is the province of Ontario that will miss his diligence and even-handedness probing some of the worst scandals to occur under the Liberal watch.
The most outrageous finding in McCarter’s gas plant report is the fact the Ontario Power Authority knew full well it was paying out northwards of $250 million even as its political masters were assuring the public it would cost $190 million.
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The eventual figure, according to McCarter, settled at $275 million.
How could Liberal ministers possibly say one thing while the OPA clearly knew it was not true?
McCarter, a straight shooter with a valuable sense of understatement wouldn’t bite. He would not speculate on the motivations or knowledge of government ministers. Did the OPA ever inform the government of the truth? He didn’t know and wouldn’t comment. That is the rhetoric of opposition, not the voice of even handed truth.
“I think the government lied,” said Andrea Horwath, providing on cue the sound bite the media was looking for.
Energy Minister Bob Chiarelli, a wily veteran with experience in the knife fighting world of civic politics, stood calmly at the podium following the report and said the government simply relied on figures provided to it by the OPA. The tired Liberal mantra of “not our fault, someone else screwed up” was trotted back out again.
It was McCarter who pointed out a lack of oversight at Ornge and no government controls during eHealth. Each time his deep knowledge and even tone transformed a scandal into a shaming by virtue of his integrity and refusal to lower himself to cheap shots.
When the report into the Oakville power plant, which has the potential to be even more costly and outrageous, comes out in the late Summer, McCarter may be lounging on a dock somewhere far from the lights of the Queen’s Park media studio. He deserves the break, but we in Ontario deserve someone who can follow in his footsteps. Someone to provide unvarnished answers, free from spin, who is immune to the temptation of the bright lights to make it about themselves rather than the truth.
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