New legislation to rein in ORNGE would block Ontario’s ombudsman from using his watchdog powers over the scandal-plagued air ambulance agency, the Star has learned.
The minority Liberal government’s proposed Bill 50 also prevents citizens from making freedom-of-information requests about the inner workings at ORNGE, where disgraced former chief executive Dr. Chris Mazza once earned $1.4 million a year.
Opposition parties said Thursday the exclusions make a mockery of talk about bringing more transparency to the air ambulance service, which gets $150 million a year from taxpayers and is under police investigation for financial irregularities.
Giving Ontario Ombudsman André Marin oversight powers would provide citizens with “an independent third party to hear people’s grievances,” said New Democrat health critic France Gélinas.
Aside from financial issues such as executive pay and perks like taxpayer-funded MBA degrees, concerns have been raised in the past about ORNGE’s policies for launching air ambulances in time to make a difference in life-and-death situations like serious car crashes.
The government will have to explain its rationale for keeping Marin out of the picture because he has already probed the land ambulance system, said Progressive Conservative MPP Frank Klees.
“It will be difficult for them to try to justify not giving him oversight,” added Klees, who has led his party’s attacks on ORNGE.
“Why they’d try to cover this one, I don’t know.”
Health Minister Deb Matthews wouldn’t give a specific rationale for not including ombudsman oversight and freedom-of-information requests in the recently introduced bill.
But she said it “provides a lot more oversight” than a previous agreement ORNGE had with the government, under which the air ambulance service set up a complex web of for-profit companies leveraged off tax dollars.
Those for-profit companies are being wound down as a result of a forensic audit of ORNGE, with Ontario Provincial Police now probing a number of financial arrangements at the agency whose entire board of directors was replaced at Christmas time.
Matthews urged opposition parties to allow the bill to proceed through the legislature to second reading, so it can go to a committee of MPPs for further study.
“If they have ideas on how to make it better, then let’s get it on to committee and we can have that conversation,” she told the Star in an interview Thursday.
Both the Tories and NDP said they will be pushing amendments to ensure ombudsman oversight and freedom-of-information requests.
“You want transparency? Give us ombudsman oversight and give us FOI at a minimum,” said Gélinas.
Klees said that since Marin has previously probed the land ambulance system “it’s just a natural he’d have access to this … we’re going to insist on that.”
Marin’s office declined to comment.
The ombudsman, who’s done a wide-ranging series of investigations into provincial services such as police and cancer drug coverage, has lobbied for wider powers because his office does not have jurisdiction over the so-called MUSH sector — municipalities, universities, schools and hospitals — but is allowed oversight over hundreds of other government agencies, boards and commissions.
Opposition parties kept up pressure on the government Thursday for the establishment of a select committee of the legislature to probe ORNGE, instead of the current Wednesday-only hearings before the public accounts committee.
Klees wants the committee to sit at least two days at week, and during break weeks as well as throughout the summer when the legislature isn’t sitting, to wade through a list of witnesses including Mazza.
The former emergency room doctor has been served with a speaker’s warrant to appear for questioning by MPPs at the public accounts committee May 16.
Klees said the warrant was issued because Mazza, who also got hundreds of thousands of dollars in loans from ORNGE to buy an Etobicoke home recently sold, has turned down previous requests to appear.
If Mazza keeps refusing to appear, the ultimate penalty could be imprisonment and “I don’t think anybody wants to see that,” Klees added.
Original Article
Source: Star
Author: Rob Ferguson
The minority Liberal government’s proposed Bill 50 also prevents citizens from making freedom-of-information requests about the inner workings at ORNGE, where disgraced former chief executive Dr. Chris Mazza once earned $1.4 million a year.
Opposition parties said Thursday the exclusions make a mockery of talk about bringing more transparency to the air ambulance service, which gets $150 million a year from taxpayers and is under police investigation for financial irregularities.
Giving Ontario Ombudsman André Marin oversight powers would provide citizens with “an independent third party to hear people’s grievances,” said New Democrat health critic France Gélinas.
Aside from financial issues such as executive pay and perks like taxpayer-funded MBA degrees, concerns have been raised in the past about ORNGE’s policies for launching air ambulances in time to make a difference in life-and-death situations like serious car crashes.
The government will have to explain its rationale for keeping Marin out of the picture because he has already probed the land ambulance system, said Progressive Conservative MPP Frank Klees.
“It will be difficult for them to try to justify not giving him oversight,” added Klees, who has led his party’s attacks on ORNGE.
“Why they’d try to cover this one, I don’t know.”
Health Minister Deb Matthews wouldn’t give a specific rationale for not including ombudsman oversight and freedom-of-information requests in the recently introduced bill.
But she said it “provides a lot more oversight” than a previous agreement ORNGE had with the government, under which the air ambulance service set up a complex web of for-profit companies leveraged off tax dollars.
Those for-profit companies are being wound down as a result of a forensic audit of ORNGE, with Ontario Provincial Police now probing a number of financial arrangements at the agency whose entire board of directors was replaced at Christmas time.
Matthews urged opposition parties to allow the bill to proceed through the legislature to second reading, so it can go to a committee of MPPs for further study.
“If they have ideas on how to make it better, then let’s get it on to committee and we can have that conversation,” she told the Star in an interview Thursday.
Both the Tories and NDP said they will be pushing amendments to ensure ombudsman oversight and freedom-of-information requests.
“You want transparency? Give us ombudsman oversight and give us FOI at a minimum,” said Gélinas.
Klees said that since Marin has previously probed the land ambulance system “it’s just a natural he’d have access to this … we’re going to insist on that.”
Marin’s office declined to comment.
The ombudsman, who’s done a wide-ranging series of investigations into provincial services such as police and cancer drug coverage, has lobbied for wider powers because his office does not have jurisdiction over the so-called MUSH sector — municipalities, universities, schools and hospitals — but is allowed oversight over hundreds of other government agencies, boards and commissions.
Opposition parties kept up pressure on the government Thursday for the establishment of a select committee of the legislature to probe ORNGE, instead of the current Wednesday-only hearings before the public accounts committee.
Klees wants the committee to sit at least two days at week, and during break weeks as well as throughout the summer when the legislature isn’t sitting, to wade through a list of witnesses including Mazza.
The former emergency room doctor has been served with a speaker’s warrant to appear for questioning by MPPs at the public accounts committee May 16.
Klees said the warrant was issued because Mazza, who also got hundreds of thousands of dollars in loans from ORNGE to buy an Etobicoke home recently sold, has turned down previous requests to appear.
If Mazza keeps refusing to appear, the ultimate penalty could be imprisonment and “I don’t think anybody wants to see that,” Klees added.
Original Article
Source: Star
Author: Rob Ferguson
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