Ashton is not cabinet material

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This article was published 17/06/2015 (3858 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Steve Ashton should not be in Premier Greg Selinger’s cabinet.

The fact he still sits in cabinet, after revelations of some serious rule sidestepping, should make Manitobans wonder what the MLA from Thompson would have to do to get himself turfed.

Mr. Selinger knew in November, about the time he promoted his infrastructure minister to house leader, that Mr. Ashton was ignoring basic rules of government procurement to push an untendered $5-million deal for flood-protection equipment.

Dave Chomiak became NDP house leader after Mr. Ashton resigned to run for the NDP leadership.

Mr. Ashton, sources say, tried doing an end run around the Treasury Board, which was opposed to cutting the $5-million cheque to the Interlake Reserves Tribal Council. The council had bought the flood-fighting tubes, called Tiger Dams, from a supplier who was a political donor to Mr. Ashton. Council chairman Glenn Hudson sent the bill directly to the minister.

All stinky stuff.

Mr. Ashton has denied none of this. His actions were so abundantly, obviously, offside of standard tendering rules — which require multiple bids on contracts of this value — the former acting ombudsman, Mel Holley, got involved. He took a whistleblower’s complaint to the clerk of the cabinet, Milton Sussman, despite the fact the Public Interest Disclosure Act doesn’t give the ombudsman authority over cabinet ministers. (Eventually, the federal government covered the Tiger Dam bill.)

Is this the way the NDP government does business? Ministers personally making deals with third parties to buy goods? How can Mr. Ashton know that what was bought — 33 Tiger Dams along with “straps, anchors, generators, pumps and the latest equipment” — was worth $5 million without putting it up for tender?

He couldn’t have known whether another firm could have supplied a better product at a competitive price. Under Manitoba’s Government Purchases Act, there are exceptions to tendering, but this deal met none of them.

So Manitoba taxpayers didn’t pick up the tab. But was that just because someone inside government blew the whistle?

Mr. Selinger appears to have brushed the incident off and has taken no action against Mr. Ashton personally. The premier was desperate both for support from cabinet ministers and for some experience in the inner circle. Last summer and through the fall, cabinet ministers were growing increasingly unhappy with Mr. Selinger, his decisions and his performance, as his and the NDP’s popularity flagged. Eventually, five front-benchers revolted and bolted, which saw cabinet filled with lesser lights.

Mr. Ashton stayed on until Christmas, when he resigned to run in the leadership race against the premier and former jobs and the economy minister Theresa Oswald. After squeaking back in as leader, Mr. Selinger welcomed Mr. Ashton back.

Mr. Ashton ought to have been tossed from cabinet for his actions and not invited into the inner circle again. For civil servants, watching from the sidelines, his apparent impunity makes it tough to know when the rules apply.

An allegation the premier’s office itself muscled in on the Treasury Board, to get it to approve the expenditure, is troubling. Who would dare to blow a whistle in such an environment?

Mr. Selinger can’t let this lie. He can answer, himself, questions as to his office’s involvement, and he should dump Mr. Ashton. That salutary message to his cabinet, political staff and government appointees would have a ripple effect across the bureaucracy.