Ontario auditor general exposes litany of government snafus in annual report
Examples include cracked highways, overspending on eHealth records, shoddy Metrolinx oversight of contractors, and a climate change plan that will do more in California than Ontario.

TheStar.com
Nov. 30, 2016
Robert Benzie

Crumbling highways, shoddy transit contractors, $8 billion spent on still-incomplete eHealth electronic medical records, and a climate change plan that will do more in California than Ontario.

Those are some of a litany of government snafus exposed by auditor general Bonnie Lysyk in her annual two-volume, 1,063-page report to the legislature on Wednesday.

The independent watchdog said a common theme throughout her 13 value-for-money audits was government contractors and suppliers screwing up yet still being rewarded with additional business.

“They probably receive more chances than you and I would give them if they were renovating our house,” said Lysyk.

Her audit of eHealth Ontario found the controversial agency’s work remained unfinished some 14 years after the computerized health records program was formally launched.

“The initiative has certainly advanced since our last audit in 2009. However it is still not possible to say if it is on budget because the government never set an overall budget,” she said.

“In effect, we cannot say if $8 billion is a reasonable figure.”

That amount includes $3 billion spent by eHealth, $1 billion by the Ministry of Health and agencies like Cancer Care Ontario, and $4 billion by hospitals, community care access centres and other clinics across the province.

As first disclosed by the Star on Oct. 13, the government was so worried about Lysyk’s audit that it scrambled former TD Bank CEO Ed Clark, Premier Kathleen Wynne’s business guru, to recommend improvements.

In a 48-page report last week, Clark said while eHealth provides‎ $900 million in annual health-care benefits to Ontarians, its mandate should be sharpened so it has “an explicit focus on technology service delivery and to ensure the agency is held to account for delivery” of those services.

The agency has been dogged by problems, including an expense account scandal when private consultants earning $3,000 a day billed taxpayers for $3.99 Choco Bite cookies and $1.65 Tim Hortons tea.

Lysyk found the seven main eHealth projects that former premier Dalton McGuinty’s government deemed priorities in 2010 were only about 80 per cent done — despite a 2015 deadline for completion. Those are now expected to be finished by March.

Health Minister Eric Hoskins said he will soon unveil “the next steps of our digital health strategy that will continue modernizing our system, further improving patient access, connectivity and experience.”

But Progressive Conservative Leader Patrick Brown was incredulous, noting that “$8 billion dollars later, the government still can’t tell Ontarians when they will have a functional electronic health records system or how much it will actually cost them.”

New Democrat MPP Catherine Fife (Kitchener-Waterloo) said “people feel like we’re at a tipping point in Ontario and major changes need to happen if the next generation is going to have the same opportunities or better opportunities than we had.”

The auditor also expressed concern that Ontario’s highways are cracking up long before they should — in some cases just a year or two after being repaved — because contractors are using poor-quality asphalt, costing the government millions in repairs and adding to drivers’ frustrations.

Lysyk also had criticism for Metrolinx, the GTA’s regional public transit agency, citing a slew of problems including lax oversight of contractors’ work that cost taxpayers “significant amounts.”

While public transit does help reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the auditor raised questions about the government’s hyped climate change scheme that includes a cap-and-trade program with Quebec and California.

She predicted the carbon pricing plan, which takes effect Jan. 1, could cost the Ontario economy $8 billion between next year and 2020 and will not significantly lower emissions here.

That’s because polluters who buy — or trade for — emissions allowances can count them against reductions achieved in Quebec or California.

Lysyk took the government to task for a 66-per-cent hike in spending on advertising after Wynne “weakened” legislation banning publicly funded partisan ads.

The $49.9 million included a spate of ads on the now-defunct Ontario Retirement Pension Plan and “self-congratulatory” spots, including one about improving the environment that depicted animals clapping.