The Campbell Liberals appear to have added a new verse to their song sheet. It says "the Auditor General has approved"; but it is wrong. The Auditor General testifies to the accuracy of the government's financial statements; that does not mean that any fraud or irregularity that creeps through has been approved!

CBC reported that environmental groups allege that $2.3 million in penalties and rents owed by fish farms to the government were forgiven without proper authority. The new Minister, George Abbott, is reported to have said "the Auditor General has already approved what happened, but he says a fresh investigation is OK with him." Information on the Sierra Legal Defense Fund's website says that they obtained documents under a Freedom of Information request that show as much as $1.5 million was given away by not collecting fines from fish farms.

Shortly after resigning as Minister of Children and Family Development, Gordon Hogg used the line about the Auditor General on Jon McComb's show on CKNW. As a result of that outrageous assertion I sent the letter copied below to the Auditor General. It should be noted that the awarding of untendered contracts to Doug Walls occurred under the transition committee that preceded the Interim Authority.

The Campbell government has weakened the office of the Auditor General by cutting his budget, but that must not force him to ignore attempts to co-op his office in phony defenses for inappropriate write-offs of monies owed by friends and insiders of the government. Is a pattern emerging that calls for a much larger forensic audit?

January 26, 2004

Mr. Wayne K. Strelioff, CA
Auditor General
8 Bastion Square                                                       by fax to 250 387-1230
Victoria, British Columbia
V8V 1X4

Dear Mr. Strelioff:

Re: Interim Authority for Community Living

On CKNW on Friday evening at approximately 7:15, former Minister Gordon Hogg said that you approved of the breaking up of $63,000 in contracts with Mr. Doug Walls and that you found that it was not a violation of the Financial Administration Act. In particular he said:

"The auditor of note for the Interim Authority is the Auditor General of BC, and part of the Auditor General's review includes looking at policies, practices and procedures and insuring they are consistent with the Financial Administration Act. The last report received I believe was in June of last year and it gave them a clear bill of health in respect of that. My issue is that optically it doesn't look good when that happens so the question that needs to be asked is whether there was abuse of the policy by breaking down contracts so as to avoid the policy, and I have been assured that was not the case."

I am writing to draw this to your attention since as long as it goes without refutation, those who listened to the show might believe that Mr. Hogg was correct in implicating you in approving how the contracts were awarded.

Sincerely,

David D. Schreck