Tempers flared and insults were hurled, but Matthews stood her ground and insisted that despite what ORNGE former CEO Mazza testified on July 18, the opposite was often true.
Not only did Mazza stand her up twice, he stonewalled Auditor General Jim McCarter as he investigated, he refused to disclose his $1.4-million salary publicly and he “manipulated patient transfer numbers he reports to the ministry,” Matthews testified.
In McCarter’s special report on ORNGE, released last March, he discovered that since 2008 the firm received nearly $13 million a year to transfer a projected 20,000 patients by road. In reality, the service transports only 3,000 people.
Any testimony “that had he been asked to make any changes of any kind at any time, his answer would have been, ‘Yes ma’am!’ Is pure nonsense,” she emphatically told the committee.
“That was a message that was received loud and clear and it led directly down the path that ended with a complete overhaul of leadership at ORNGE,” she said. “I am under no illusion that had Chris Mazza would have met with me, he would have been forthcoming about his actions.”
And after 600 pages of ORNGE testimony and listening to 54 witnesses by the end of the week, it is time for the opposition-dominated probe to stop blaming and come up with a report on how to fix the system, Matthews said.
After four months of testimony, the probe has heard of Mazza’s reign at the agency since 2005, of the hiring of his water-ski instructor girlfriend who rose up the corporate ladder to become an associate vice-president and of the bizarre web of for-profit spin-off companies created by ORNGE. The probe also heard of questionable business dealings and contracts now being investigated by the Ontario Provincial Police.
New information also came to light at the hearing. Red flags warning of serious financial concerns inside ORNGE were raised by Ministry of Health senior staffers in June 2011, Progressive Conservative MPP Frank Klees charged.
He released a memo from Malcolm Bates, director of the ministry’s emergency health services branch, stating the government may have to step in and assume massive debt at ORNGE.
After reviewing audited financial statements, Bates details a $4.3-million loan receivable where “taxpayer dollars” have been lent out, a balance decline in restricted cash from $113 million to $11.8 million, and it discusses the jump in ORNGE’s capital assets. They rose from $96.4 million to $264 million and cite “assets under construction” as the reason for the rise.
“We do not have additional information on this — we assume this is planes that are not completed but are in progress,” the letter stated.
Matthews first told the committee she had never seen Bates’ memo before. She later said the letter was prepared for the eyes of senior ministry staff.
Klees retorted back that he found it “passing strange” she had not seen it and questioned why. “What are you hiding?”
Often, Liberal committee members jumped in to stop Klees as he bombarded Matthews; at one point Liberal MPP David Zimmer accused Klees of acting like the probe’s “Jim McCarthy.” McCarthy was a U.S. Republican senator known for ferocious attacks towards other government members he suspected of being a Communist during the Cold War.
The Health Minister said Klees has a history of dropping information bombs that consistently turn out to be untrue.
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“On behalf of the frontline staff, the paramedics, pilots, the engineers, all 600 staff —would you stop running down the organization and be part of the solution? I am hungry for this committee to finish its work and write its report. . . I’d like the recommendations of the committee,” she said.
Klees shouted back his first recommendation would be to “start with your resignation.”
NDP MPPs France Gélinas and Jagmeet Singh both chastised Matthews for letting ORNGE “run amok” without proper oversight.
Gelinas pointed out back in 2010 that then NDP MPP Howard Hampton asked 47 questions concerning ORNGE and Mazza’s salary in estimates committee, but his questions were completely ignored and not answered until the scandal recently unfolded.
“The warning signs were coming from all sides, but you didn’t act until the story hit the front page of the paper,” she said, referring to the Star’s ongoing investigation into ORNGE.
Gelinas also asked if taxpayers would be on the hook for the $1.8 million that helicopter firm AgustaWestland now wants back from ORNGE, as was disclosed in Monday’s Star.
Matthews replied that since the firm Agusta wants the money from is an ORNGE spin-off that is now bankrupt, taxpayers don’t have to worry about it.
Outside of committee, Klees charged Matthews had to be embarrassed into action on the ORNGE file and that the senior bureaucrats who didn’t give her the Bates memo should be fired.
“If it is true that the minister was not being given this information, then quite frankly those bureaucrats should be given their walking papers and the minister should go with them,” Klees said.
Matthews rejected Klees’ notion, saying ministry staff are working hard to raise issues and she is informed of what is necessary.
“Frank Klees, on many occasions, has dropped information like a big bomb shell and they fizzle when they actually see the light,” she said.
Original Article
Source: the star
Author: Tanya Talaga
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