However, a speech written in March 2013 for Conservative cabinet minister Joe Oliver by Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s former chief of staff Guy Giorno, was never used, despite the fact that the government paid $5,650 for the six and a half page text, iPolitics has learned.
Natural Resource department officials say the department doesn’t make a practice of commissioning speeches that are never delivered. However, they have repeatedly refused to reveal which group Oliver, then natural resources minister, had been scheduled to address.
Compounding the mystery, all they will say is simply that the “post-budget event” speech wasn’t delivered because the minister’s schedule changed. However, the text of the speech makes no reference to a federal budget.
According to the invoice from Giorno’s law firm, Fasken Martineau, the speech was handed over to Oliver’s office on March 30, 2013. At one point in the speech a footnote “assumes an April delivery of speech.”
That speech, along with another one written by Giorno earlier that month, were in the spotlight last month after Liberal MP David McGuinty accused the government of breaking Treasury Board guidelines designed to prevent corruption and political favouritism.
According to documents obtained by the Liberal Party under the Access to Information Act, Dave Forestell, Oliver’s chief of staff when he was natural resources minister, authorized two contracts totaling $8,475 for Giorno after the speeches were actually written and given to Oliver’s office.
The first speech, to announce a special representative on West Coast energy infrastructure cost $2,825 including HST while the second one, which was never used, cost $5,650 including tax.
Giorno, now a partner with the Fasken Martineau law firm, worked with Forestell in Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s office for several months in 2009.
The problems began on March 28, 2013 when a procurement clerk at Natural Resources flagged the invoice for the first speech, pointing out that it was an “after the fact request.”
“Please keep in mind that after the fact contracting contravenes both the Treasury Board and NRCan Contracting Policy,” wrote Anne Joly to Sofie Lacroix. “We keep a record of all after the fact requests and report on them on an annual basis. After the fact and verbal contracting poses unnecessary risk to the Crown and should be avoided.”
Forestell, however, defended the after the fact contract and the choice of Giorno.
“Quick turnaround time and the Minister is comfortable with the style and tone of this speechwriter,” he responded by e-mail to officials.
Forestell has not yet returned phone calls or e-mail messages from iPolitics.
Reached Thursday, Giorno referred questions about why the second March speech was never delivered to the people who served on Oliver’s staff at the time.
Opposition critics, however, want to know more.
McGuinty called on Oliver to shed light on why his office bypassed departmental speechwriters for the contracts and why one of the speeches was never delivered.
“I think Mr. Oliver has some explaining to do. I don’t think he can hide and bob and weave with this,” said McGuinty. “If this was a legitimate procurement then he has to explain those timelines, the substance of the speech, where it was intended to be given and he needs to explain mostly why he forced his officials at NRCan who told him that this was improper. He needs to explain why he forced them to do it and why did they require from him and his staff a written statement, frankly, to cover themselves.”
“That’s what appears to have happened here.”
NDP ethics critic Charlie Angus also wants answers.
“This is a government that said that they were going to clean up how business was done in Ottawa and yet time and time again it’s who you know in the PMO,” Angus said. “The money is given out, the rules are broken, people who are very close to this government get contracts.”
“We’re not even getting value for our dollar here. Why is it that very close friends to the prime minister and the inner circle are getting these kinds of sweetheart deals?”
Angus questioned why taxpayers ended up paying for an outside speechwriter when they are already paying for departmental speechwriters.
Aaron Wudrick, federal director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, said the speeches raise significant questions about how taxpayers’ money was handled.
“I think that that’s problematic. We understand that sometimes the government has to outsource work but they have to follow the proper protocol. So that’s certainly the first yellow flag.”
“If there is a reason that they are saying they didn’t have to follow the protocol, certainly it shouldn’t be a situation where they aren’t actually going to use the speech.”
If Oliver’s office said they had to bypass normal procurement procedures because the speech was needed quickly, why was it never delivered, Wudrick asked.
Original Article
Source: ipolitics.ca/
Author: Elizabeth Thompson
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