Just a short 15 days ago and with great fanfare and indignation, a very serious looking Dwight Duncan, finance minister for the province of Ontario, fired with cause Kelly McDougald, the CEO of the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation (OLG). The same day, the OLG Board Chair and the rest of the Board all resigned or were pushed out.
Minister Duncan, who only 2 months ago got responsibility for the OLG, exposed all the dirty laundry in a Toronto media conference filled with tension. The tension comes from what appears to be poor oversight by the Board of Directors of the OLG management and some interesting spending habits. There is lots of political sting here as this is fresh on the heals of the spending and contract scandal over at eHealth.
Premier Dalton McGuinty even got into the act by announcing new rules for the people who receive these political appointments. McGuinty announced that workers at the largest 23 of Ontario's 600 agencies, boards, and commissions will have to submit their expense claims to the integrity commissioner rather than having them approved in-house. Things must be pretty bad.
The 600 or so agencies, boards, and commissions (ABC's) do all sorts of things from running lotteries to managing environmental hearings, to the LCBO. The ABC's are so numerous and so influential they could be considered a government within a government. Most of them do good and important work and stay out of trouble.
The ABC's report to one government minister or another, so there is direct political accountability. As well, the legislature has an all-party committee that has oversight responsibility for these agencies, boards, and commissions. When I served as MPP for Essex South, I was for several years a member of this legislative committee. We would hold public hearings and have several of these ABC's before the committee each year and then issue a report.
Media reports indicate that Kelly McDougald, the fired CEO, was handpicked by the Liberals for the $400,000 per year job. This makes the whole fiasco doubly embarrassing for Duncan and the Liberals.
"I am disappointed about what has been brought to my attention," said Duncan during his media conference. He went on to outline some of the spending: $7.70 pen refill, a $1.12 cloth grocery, a $30 car wash claim submitted without a receipt, $487.50 for a nanny to be paid so a worker could attend meetings from September 2006 to December 2006 - no receipts, but the expense was allowed anyway.
All of the above is small but rotten potatoes. So we have got to believe that more--and the worst--is yet to come. You don't fire a CEO with cause on the stuff we have been told so far.
McDougald, according to Toronto media, will soon file a $9 million lawsuit for wrongful dismissal. This is bad news for Duncan, McGuinty and the Liberals, as all sorts of damaging political information is sure come out. In fact, one of the members of the OLG Board of Directors who resigned said she quit because the Liberals failed to act on the board's advice to strengthen accountability. Stuff like this will be used against the Liberals both in the court of law and the court of public opinion.
Stay tuned.
