Common sense was lost when Tories won

Globe and Mail - February 24, 2004
by Murray Campbell

These were the people who came to fix government. Just remember that when you read the latest instalment of what promises to be a torrent of disclosures about how prominent Progressive Conservatives in Ontario feathered their own nests.

Mike Harris promised things would be done differently in his government. "Wasteful spending has become entrenched in the system," his 1995 election manifesto said. "We will weed it out."

You be the judge. A couple of weeks ago, it was revelations about hunting trips and lavish hospitality among executives hired by the former Conservative government to oversee Ontario's transition to a profit-driven electricity market.

Now, it's new information about how some Tories used the privatization of the old Ontario Hydro as a cover for some awfully expensive scratching of each others' backs.

The $5.6-million that Hydro One, the government-owned company responsible for transmitting electricity in Ontario, spent on untendered contracts for consulting and other services with senior Tories may pale in comparison with Ottawa's sponsorship scandal. But it is just as egregious, and what's worse is that there is no cover story about fighting for national unity.

Consider just one example plucked from many in 100 pages of information released yesterday in response to a freedom-of-information request by The Globe and Mail.

Starting in 1999, Egon Zehnder International, an executive recruitment firm with an office in Toronto, received $83,000 to recruit Deb Hutton (Tory MPP, Tim Hudak's wife) as a vice-president of government relations for Hydro One.

What the purchase order doesn't note is that Tom Long, a principal of Egon Zehnder, played a prominent role in the Common Sense Revolution of Mr. Harris -- he was the chair of the 1995 and 1999 Conservative election campaigns -- and Ms. Hutton was a senior adviser on Mr. Harris's staff when Ontario Hydro was being dismantled. This is recruitment that could have been done over dinner at, say, Canoe, a posh restaurant that Ms. Hutton showed a fondness for after she moved to Hydro One.

Of course, there was a sense even before Hydro One was created that a party was going on to which most of us weren't invited. Five years ago, we discovered that five influential Conservatives earned about $1.7-million for themselves or their firms from dealings with Ontario Hydro after 1995.

At that time, we learned that Leslie Noble, a consultant who had managed the 1995 and 1999 campaigns, was paid $91,000 under a consulting contract for which there was no written material on file. Paul Rhodes, who had served as communications director in Mr. Harris's first term, collected $225,000 for communications advice, the only evidence of which was a 10-page fax. William Farlinger, tapped by Mr. Harris to be Ontario Hydro chair, was paid up to $350,000 a year for the largely ceremonial post. Mr. Long charged $650 an hour for writing Mr. Farlinger's speeches. Tom Trbovich, a senior official in the former national Progressive Conservative Party, collected $136,000 for a contract that produced a three-page fax.

The Conservatives exempted Ontario Hydro's successor companies from provincial freedom-of-information legislation after 1999, but the Liberals have pulled back this blanket to reveal that the party continued after those revelations. Hydro One gave contracts worth $335,000 to Mr. Rhodes and $250,000 to Ms. Noble. In addition, it favoured corporations associated with Michael Gourley with a contract that paid up to $40,000 a month.

Mr. Gourley served as deputy minister of Finance under Ernie Eves, left for the private sector in 1998 and then came back in 2002 under Mr. Eves to run the Ontario Electricity Financial Corp., where he earned nearly $1-million in 15 months.

It's hard to know what is more objectionable -- that the contracts were let without tender or that Hydro One is refusing to release details about the work done in return for taxpayers' money. The province's auditor had complained for years about spending on outside consultants under the Tories.

In 2002, Ontario ministries and agencies spent $662-million for outside advice, compared with $271-million in 1998. So much for weeding out wasteful spending.

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