As members of the standing committee of public accounts on both sides of the aisle question key witnesses of the Saint John new deal funding agreement, some MLAs are worried that the true goal of the committee is being lost.
“I’m feeling unclear on whether or not we’re really going to get to the bottom of this,” said Megan Mitton, the Green Party representative on the committee. “We still have more different people that are going to come before us and we’ll be able to ask more questions, but it’s feeling unclear whether we’ll get to the bottom of this right now.”
Throughout two days of testimony, Liberal and Progressive Conservative MLAs have thrown barbs back and forth across the aisle.
It’s something People’s Alliance leader Kris Austin described at one point as “dramatics.”
“Anybody that was here yesterday with the former premier Mr. Gallant testifying, it was obvious right at the opening statement that this is now beginning to shift into political barbs back and forth,” Austin said.
“Committees are not designed to do that. Committees are designed to be non-partisan and get to the heart of the issue.”
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Mitton agreed that partisan politics were playing a role in the proceedings.
“Different people have different things at stake at this point and there have been some conflicting answers,” she said.
“Right now what I am trying to do is ask as many questions as I can and get down to the bottom of it and to get answers to make sure that we get the partisanship out of the way and just find out exactly what happened.”
One instance where statements were failing to match up came when members of the joint working group appeared before the committee. Co-chair Joel Dickinson disagreed with Gallant’s statement on Tuesday that there had been a draft report ready by the time the election was held in September, referring rather to a “continuum of ideas.”
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One common thread throughout the testimony was that the agreement was legal, despite the Auditor General Kim MacPherson saying the funding agreement should have gotten legislative approval.
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Cheryl Hansen, deputy minister of the treasury board, said the way the deal was reached was not ideal, but that there was no wrongdoing.
Former Gallant chief of staff Jordan O’Brien also argued that no rules were broken and the government used sound public policy while rushing to meet Saint John’s budget deadline. O’Brien also echoed Gallant’s statement that MacPherson did not have access to all necessary documents when she prepared her report.
PC representative Glen Savoie said that the funding deal may not have been illegal, but it certainly didn’t mean it was O.K.
“If there is some ambiguity in language and you have the leeway to do something it doesn’t mean you should,” he said.
“I think people as a general rule don’t appreciate their governments playing fast and loose with the laws. I think that in this case you can argue that they came close to the edge and perhaps a little too close for the edge for come people’s liking, but ultimately I believe that thing should be made more clear in the Financial Administration Act to ensure that these kinds of things can’t happen again.”
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Savoie also accused the Liberals of trying to cast doubt on the report of the auditor general, suggesting they are trying to avoid dealing with the concerns raised in the AG report.
“When you have a former premier who attacks the auditor general who is an independent officer of the legislature, when you have MLAs who are posing questions that only half deal with the subject matter of what the auditor general is trying to say, I have a great concern for that,” he said.
The Liberals, on the other hand, have tried to show comprehensively that there was no wrongdoing on their part and have suggested the current PC government erred when the working group report was not ready for January 1, 2019, which was the date set out by the original funding agreement.
“All the laws and legislation was followed for this Saint John new deal and the government of the day had full financial authority to provide interim funding, which we did,” he said.
“The final report had to be done by Jan. 1, 2019, so the city of Saint John … could take that information and move forward on their budget. The Higgs government has delayed this process by six to seven months by interfering in the process.”
Yet testimony suggested it was a mix of factors that caused the delay in the report.
Dickinson said it was four main factors that slowed down the production of the joint working group’s report: the unusual fall election that had a longer-than-normal transition period, Saint John had three city managers throughout the time period, direction on action items received by Higgs in early 2019, and the idea of a bridging strategy that was first introduced by current city manager John Collin in January 2019.
But among all of this, Austin says the committee highlights just how crucial government action is on municipal tax reform.
“What I’m getting out of this is really what we’ve been saying for a long time,” he said.
“If you take the whole Saint John deal as it is and just put that aside and look at the bigger picture, the bigger picture is tax reform. Everybody has said that. The mayor has said that, the former premier has even said that.”
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