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With these Liberals, can a “Goodness Commissioner” be far behind?

Shocking! Ontario Fairness Commissioner’s Expenses Questioned



The fact that an appointee of Ontario’s Liberal government, a former federal Liberal MP, was charging taxpayers so to travel in style and that there was no small expense she wouldn’t pass along, was no surprise. What was indeed a shock is the province of Ontario has a Fairness Commissioner. Who knew?
Earlier this week, Ontario’s Fairness Commissioner was questioned about her expenses. According to PC MPP Monte McNaughton, the commissioner, Jean Augustine, billed the taxpayer for $3,400 in limousine rides and $3.40 for airplane headphones. In addition to these major expenses and the minor ones most people would pay out of their own pocket, Augustine is also alleged to have charged taxpayers for a personal sightseeing tour while on a $6,300 junket to Finland. McNaughton said, “Clearly the eHealth and Pan-Am Games style of entitlement is alive and well…” Augustine described the nerve of the PCs questioning of her expenses in the legislature as “heartbreaking,” and blamed them for destroying her reputation. So much for accountability. According to the commissioner, the charging of $3.40 for the use of headphones on an aircraft was a “mistake.” Liberal MPP Michael Chan said the commissioner had paid back some of the expenses but would not say which ones. Augustine was a Liberal MP prior to being appointed as Fairness Commissioner. She gave up her safe Liberal riding of Etobicoke-Lakeshore in 2006 to allow Michael Ignatieff to run. Ignatieff came to visit Canada in order to run for the Liberal leadership and eventually become prime minister of Canada. Ignatieff became leader and was trounced by Harper’s Conservatives, leading to his resignation and replacement by Justin Trudeau.

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As a reward for her standing aside for the good of the team, she was appointed by then Ontario Liberal Party premier Dalton McGuinty in 2007 to serve as the province’s first fairness commissioner. Augustine is not the first Liberal MP to receive a patronage appointment and then go on to be embroiled in a spending scandal. Nor is this the first provincial spending scandal for the provincial Liberals since the party came to power in 2003. David Dingwall was first elected as a Liberal MP in 1980. After the party came to power in 1993, the Nova Scotia MP served in the cabinet of Jean Chretien and served as an MP until he was defeated in the 1997 election. In 2003, he went to his reward when he was appointed as the President and CEO of the Royal Canadian Mint. Dingwall resigned in 2005 after his expenses were questioned. Although later cleared of any wrongdoing, these expense included over $90,000 in foreign travel expenses, almost $5,300 in golf memberships and what irked a lot of people the most, $1.29 for a pack of chewing gum. Dingwall is best remembered for how he justified his spending before a parliamentary committee: “I’m entitled to my entitlements.” As well as the actions of these federal MPs, the Ontario government has had its share of spending scandals. The most egregious is that of the gas plants scandals when the province spent close to one billion dollars to cancel the construction of two gas plants. Construction on these plants were stopped and they were relocated in order for the Liberals to save two seats during the 2011 election. In addition, there was the billion dollar eHealth scandal where money was spent on IT consultants and computer equipment to put Ontarians’ health records online. In the end, nothing much happened. The Office of the Fairness Commissioner was created in 2007 by former Premier Dalton McGuinty. Like the current premier, Kathleen Wynne, McGuinty was a true tax-and-spender. He never missed an opportunity to grow the bureaucracy or bring in new laws rather than attempt to enforce existing laws on the books. The Liberal Party of Ontario spends much of its time dreaming up new laws to control the province’s knuckle-dragging citizens who are too dumb to run their own lives and who voted them into office. McGuinty wasn’t called Premier Dad for nothing. The purpose of the Office of the Fairness Commissioner is to ensure that professionals, such as doctors, engineers and accountants with foreign credentials receive accreditation and licences from bodies that are regulated by the province. While this is a laudable goal, it raises the issue of whether an entire separate bureaucracy, headed by a free-sending political hack, is really necessary. Surely the problem of wrongly withholding accreditation could have been resolved through any legislative changes that were needed and by hiring a few enforcement officers. And even if a separate bureaucracy was needed, why is it called “Fairness?” It is too cute by half and appears to be more for show and to allow a former MP to feed at the trough than a needed agency. With these Liberals, can a “Goodness Commissioner” be far behind?

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Arthur Weinreb -- Bio and Archives

Arthur Weinreb is an author, columnist and Associate Editor of Canada Free Press. Arthur’s latest book, Ford Nation: Why hundreds of thousands of Torontonians supported their conservative crack-smoking mayor is available at Amazon. Racism and the Death of Trayvon Martin is also available at Smashwords. His work has appeared on Newsmax.com,  Drudge Report, Foxnews.com.

Older articles (2007) by Arthur Weinreb


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