In government, ‘mostly’ transparent doesn’t count

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 05/06/2016 (3445 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Sooner or later, someone in the new Progressive Conservative government will have to come up with a strategy to protect Finance Minister Cameron Friesen.

The Tories have only been in charge for seven weeks or so, but during that time Friesen has been forced to absorb more than his fair share of verbal abuse. The hits have been so fierce that Premier Brian Pallister may be well advised to build a quiet room next to the legislative chamber so Friesen can be put through baseline concussion testing before letting him back into question period.

The trouble started a few weeks ago when Friesen announced the budget deficit for the last fiscal year. Friesen claimed the deficit had, as a result of NDP duplicity and incompetence, grown to more than $1 billion. However, Friesen refused to say how the deficit had grown, or identify the specific government programs that had driven it higher. He was ravaged by journalists in attendance, and savaged by opposition MLAs in question period.

We then move on to the provincial budget itself when Friesen waded courageously into the pre-budget news conference — an embargoed affair held just 30 minutes or so before he stands in the legislature to deliver his speech — and right into another solid thrashing.

Again, Friesen seemed unable to explain key aspects of his budget, including his decision to omit annual deficit forecasts, a staple of provincial budgets. Friesen’s inability to explain that glaring omission, plus a raft of other inexplicably, intellectually dishonest assertions, hijacked the narrative for his first budget and left the Tory government on the defensive.

And then, late last week, Friesen demonstrated a seemingly inexhaustible capacity to absorb punishment by announcing he intends to conceal some of the findings of a much-vaunted value-for-money audit the government hopes to launch in the coming months.

It turns out the audit consultant will be required to provide “confidential advice and recommendations to the minister of finance for consideration during the development of the next provincial budget.” As soon as the word “confidential” popped, up, the Opposition pounced. What was it, the NDP wanted to know, that the minister was trying to hide?

In response, Friesen said while some of the audit will likely be made public, he will withhold other information that would somehow jeopardize the real results. He went on to explain that he needed to balance cabinet confidentiality with the public’s right to know how the government will manage expenditures into the future.

“We believe in transparency,” Friesen added.

None of what Friesen said made any sense. His mushy answer seemed to substantiate the Opposition’s rhetorical question. This was an opportunity for Friesen to explain, fully and completely, any legal reasons for keeping some of the audit’s findings confidential. And theoretically, there may be some good reasons for hiding some of the audit’s findings and recommendations. However, the specific reasons for keeping that information confidential should be 100 per cent public.

Moreover, it is simply not reasonable to take steps to obscure the public’s view of important government activity, and then claim you support transparency. You either support the concept of transparency, and let everyone see the details of the audit, or you don’t support transparency, and you keep some of the details private. In government, you don’t get any points for being mostly transparent.

Perhaps the Pallister government has already figured out that audits of this kind can be annoyingly apolitical, and thus a source of great controversy. Accountants don’t have much of a nose for political blowback. They cannot assess a government expenditure against the political impact. They cannot differentiate between real waste and a wasteful but politically important expense.

Auditors will instruct the government on the easiest ways to reduce spending, but easy becomes real tough when it starts pissing off the wrong constituencies. And those recommendations — stripped of context or political correctness of any kind — can easily be converted into hidden agendas by mischievous critics.

Apart from the concerns Manitobans should have about not being able to see the entire audit, other concerns are mounting about the capacity of this new government to design and execute on its message.

A new government delivering its first budget just six weeks after the election should not be getting into any kind of serious trouble. And there is no need for the finance minister in that government to provoke so much confusion and distrust in such a short period of time.

Some of this is a reflection of the fact that Friesen is currently undergoing some pretty intense on-the-job training. However, it is quite unfair to lay all of this on Friesen. Although he is the face of the Finance portfolio, everything he says and does is part of a centrally forged and vetted message. A message that is off kilter.

The fact is, the PC government is enduring too many self-inflicted wounds. Nothing profound or career limiting, yet. And the good news is that with just a bit more time and effort on the message, and a genuine commitment to transparency, the Tories could ease the burden and protect the melons of Friesen and the other rookie ministers.

If this government wants to be the champion of transparency and integrity, it needs to start demonstrating a commitment to both principles in everything it says and does.

Just saying it, and not really doing it, will leave a whole lot more Tory cabinet ministers with a whole lot more lumps on their heads.

dan.lett@freepress.mb.ca