Although, to be fair, I guess the SoCreds didn't get nearly as extravagant in shoveling out our taxpayer dollars as the neoLiberals have in their time forming government. It's a good thing that will be over soon, it's all been a very, very bad dream. But it's time to wake up now.
Official Report of
DEBATES OF THE LEGISLATIVE ASSEMBLY
(Hansard)
TUESDAY, JUNE 17, 1986
Afternoon Sitting
[ Page 8775 ]
Excerpts, find the whole thing here.MR. HANSON: It's in Public Accounts.
We have raised extensively in this House our concern about partisan polling done at taxpayers' expense, advertising done at taxpayers' expense, disbursement of lottery funds at taxpayers' expense. We have an Orwellian nightmare in this Social Credit government, and those tentacles stretch from the Premier's office through into the lotteries branch . . . .
MR. HANSON: Mr. Chairman, one of the reasons we moved non-confidence in this minister is the kind of administration currently underway that is taking legitimate tax money which should be used for programs for people but is tunnelled to political hacks.MR. HANSON: We're talking . . . . The minister rose in his place the other day and indicated that it was a decision of his ministry to undertake the consulting services of Mr. Kinsella, Mr. Heal and Mr. Bums.
Now Mr. Bums, he was the Provincial Secretary's campaign manager in 1981. Sorry, in May of 1979. In February of 1981 he was appointed interim general manager and deputy commissioner general of Transpo '86, later Expo. The initial appointment was for a six-month term: $36, 000. In March of 1981 he was appointed to the board of directors of the B.C. Development Corporation for a three-year term.
In April of 1983 Michael Bums appeared in news reports as one of the six main Social Credit fundraisers involved in raising money for this government. In August of 1983 he resigned as manager of Expo 86 and at this time Bums heads up the Sentinel Group, together with Patrick Kinsella of Progressive Strategies and Doug Heal of Douglas Heal Communications. Burns has previously incorporated Sentinel Strategies Ltd., of which he is president. Other directors are Bette Bums and assistant secretary James Hogan.
In March 1984 he was reappointed to the board of B.C. Development Corporation. In January 1985 - and this is my chief concern in my remarks right now, Mr. Chairman - that tax money was spent by this minister's department, public money, in a retroactive contract, tunnelling money to Douglas Heal, Patrick Kinsella and Michael Burns in retrospect.
I've never seen a contract like that. I've looked at a lot of contracts in viewing vouchers, Mr. Chairman, and the contracts go like this. They are an undertaking, they say "a term" - a term of work to be employed. Usually it outlines what the schedule of service is, herein called the work. There's a term. There's a stipulation of how payment is made - a schedule of payments. There's provision for reports, for confidentiality and so on. This contract was signed on January 16. The money was paid on January 2 1. There was a rush put on it. The term of the contract was six months prior to the sitting down and signing of the contract.
The people of this province deserve an answer for that. That's their money. The people of this province are tired of you spending their money on foolishness like this. You could have had a council of deputy ministers draw up the request for proposal. You could have had a council of deputy ministers, key people, non-partisan people, career government employees. But you picked three of your key political hacks from the big blue machine to bring the taxpayers to heel.
MR. HANSON: Okay, you say it's only $33, 350. But the people of this province deserve to know why retroactivity, and why these people. The minister stood up and said because one of them has computer training. That's foolishness. That's a totally inadequate response, totally inadequate.
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