OTTAWA — Tony Clement failed to publicly account for himself at the public accounts committee on Wednesday, repeatedly telling MPs he didn’t do something that, in fact, he did do: choose the communities in his riding that would receive gazebos under the G8 legacy fund.Up in beautiful Parry Sound-Muskoka, most people think Clement did a good job bringing federal funding to his riding, and it’s hard to argue with them, in a way.
He did get a bunch of things built, and most of them are likely more useful than a lot of things Ottawa blows money on.
There are rinks where young people can play hockey, gazebos where tourists can shelter from the sun and, just down the road from Clement’s house, a new parking lot at the beautiful beach on Merry Lake.
The problem is that when then-auditor general Sheila Fraser went looking for paperwork on how the projects were selected, there was none, which is the kind of thing that auditors general strongly dislike.
The evidence shows that Clement chose the projects himself, in some kind of mysterious process in his riding office. He has steadfastly denied that, and even helpfully pointed out to reporters in September why that would have been wrong.
“If I was the decision-maker, if I had set up a parallel process — and created a situation where the auditor general did not know, that’s their accusation — I’d be resigning right now and turning myself into the local police office.”
Clement’s logic is plain: since choosing the projects himself would have been wrong, he obviously did not do so. He must deny it, forever and with great sincerity, which is what he spent Wednesday doing.
Clement’s trouble started when he convened a committee of local mayors and informed them of the existence of a $50-million fund for projects to prepare for the G8 summit.
They responded, naturally enough, by submitting 242 projects, which would have cost $500 million, 10 times what was available.
“Since there were far too many projects for the available funds,” Clement said in his opening statement. “I suggested that the mayors themselves identify the top priorities.”
A municipal official in the town of Huntsville drew up an application form, and the mayors filled it out.
“I offered my constituency office in Huntsville as a depository, where proposals could be dropped off and from there, forwarded to federal officials,” Clement said.
The ragged paper trail that does exist shows that Clement’s office sent rejection letters to the municipalities for some projects and forwarded a list of 33 projects to Ottawa, where John Baird, then the infrastructure minister, approved them all.
He picked the successful gazebos. On Wednesday, he repeatedly denied doing so, suggesting that the mayors somehow withdrew some projects.
Newfoundland and Labrador Liberal MP Gerry Byrne managed to corner him.
“If your story’s true, and it was the mayors themselves who narrowed down the list of 242 projects to 33, let me ask you this — Why did your office send rejection letters back to mayors for applications that, as far as your office was concerned, didn’t exist?”
Clement allowed that maybe, he was just too nice.
“Maybe, we were being too polite, but we wanted to make sure that we closed the file on projects that did not go forward,” he said.
It is ironic that Byrne was the guy who pierced Clement’s paper-thin defence, since in 2002, he did something very similar, back when he was the minister of the Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency.
On Nov. 20, 2003, the National Post reported that Fraser was launching an investigation because Byrne had funnelled $35 million into his riding, three times more than other ridings in the province received.
“Sources say Mr. Byrne personally identified ACOA projects for approval and directed his officials to process applications that were mostly from his riding, in contravention of Treasury Board rules,” CTV’s Bob Fife reported at the time.
One month later, Paul Martin shuffled Byrne out of ACOA and made him parliamentary secretary to the minister of health, where he no doubt, served with distinction, far from the pork barrel.
Harper has shown no sign of considering a similar move with Clement, but New Democrat MP Charlie Angus, the fiery former punk singer from Timmins, Ont., made a strong argument on Wednesday that Clement should get a new assignment.
“This is about your fundamental competence,” he said. “It gets to the question of how you do business, when the auditor general says you broke the rules.”
Clement — who is now president of the Treasury Board, the minister in charge of interpreting and administering the spending rules for the federal government — admitted he made mistakes.
“The auditor general said she was concerned about the lack of documentation,” he said. “I take that to heart. The paperwork for this was not perfect.”
“Not perfect?” Angus interrupted, incredulous. “It doesn’t exist.”
“I take my share of responsibility for that and certainly I have learned that there are different ways and better ways to provide these kinds of intake processes, and I commit myself to using them,” said Clement.
Angus was not mollified.
“When people started asking questions, you said, ‘I’m sorry, the dog ate my homework. I’ll do better the next time.’ What are you doing at Treasury Board?”
It’s a good question.
Origin
Source: National Post
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