But top officials at the ministry of health disagreed and allowed problems identified early in ORNGE’s life to fester, leading to the current scandal involving the air ambulance service.
The Star has obtained hundreds of government emails and documents from the 2008-2011 time period. In them, senior bureaucrats at both the health and finance ministries grapple with the growing ambitions of founder Dr. Chris Mazza.
The finance ministry, the documents show, told the health ministry that it had a “golden share” in ORNGE as the only funder, and also that under the Ambulance Act it had the “ability to direct” ORNGE to do almost anything it wanted to do.
Health ministry officials never acted on that, the documents show, and health minister Deb Matthews has said repeatedly she was told she lacked power to control the wayward agency. One health ministry document states categorically in 2008: “We believe that the province of Ontario does not control ORNGE.”
An ongoing Star investigation has revealed over the past three months that top officials at the premier’s office and the health ministry received warnings that ORNGE was evolving from a simple air ambulance service to a web of internationally focused companies, drawing ever more resources from the cash-strapped health ministry.
But until these documents surfaced it has not been clear if any government official took a hard look at the $150-million organization and its dreams and schemes.
The finance ministry, which watches over the provincial purse, did zero in on the issue beginning in 2008 and told health what it thought.
In one widely circulated document, titled “Indicators of Control,” the finance ministry states: “We feel the government can effectively govern the financial and operating policies of ORNGE.” The document was created because ORNGE did not want its financial statements to be consolidated with government accounts, meaning that any surplus would flow to government and any deficit would be paid by government.
The finance ministry initially won the fight to have the statements consolidated, but health ministry bureaucrats seemed more inclined to let ORNGE have free rein, so the end result was that ORNGE won the battle. Occasionally, a health bureaucrat would remark on how odd it was that this non-profit entity had suddenly created a raft of for-profit companies with unusual or number names, but largely ORNGE was left free of control.
For example, in November 2008 ORNGE discovered it had $5 million in surplus from provincial payments for its new land ambulance division. Normally, surpluses are returned to the provincial coffers. ORNGE vice-president Maria Renzella asked the health ministry if they could keep the money and use it for increasing costs involving their new helicopters.
Assistant deputy health minister Ruth Hawkins wrote back in March 2009, ORNGE it could keep the money.
Hawkins, whose responsibilities included oversight of ORNGE, has been on sick leave for the past two months and is unavailable for comment, one of her health ministry colleagues told the Star.
The documents do not show how ORNGE spent the $5 million. Mazza, the documents show, signed a document acknowledging that the money would be spent only on air ambulance-related expenditures.
Hawkins did write back to Mazza later in 2009 asking if ORNGE would consider complying with new provincial rules on expenses that prevent top executives from approving their own expenses and limit the money spent on booze at executive dinners and lunches.
Hawkins told Mazza ORNGE did not have to comply, but it would be good if it did. The documents do not indicate if ORNGE agreed.
The Star has contacted bureaucrats who authored the many emails and not one has responded to an interview request.
One health official, John Szpik, was involved in the ORNGE consolidation issue and in May 2009 wrote to six other senior health bureaucrats that he found it “odd” that ORNGE was unable to provide even a draft of its “financial results.” Szpik, a senior manager at health, also said he found it odd that “the spokesperson on ORNGE was their legal.”
The lawyer Szpik is referring to is former ORNGE counsel Alf Apps, and the documents obtained by the Star reveal Apps (who no longer represents ORNGE) was front and centre with most ORNGE-health ministry discussions.
In one of the documents, dated June 2008, Apps writes to the health ministry explaining that ORNGE non-profit has transferred $8.4 million of funds to its new charity, the ORNGE Foundation. This donation, revealed in a passing reference, is not explained further. The charity was shut down earlier this year.
Original Article
Source: Star
Author: Kevin Donovan
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