MAY 4, 2018 BY MARY CAMPBELL

Fast & Curious: Short Takes on Random Things

The Case of the Disappearing Audit Request

Several keen CBRM Council watchers on social media noted this next item this week.

During the regular meeting of CBRM Council in February, as Council was discussing plans for a Viability Study ordered by Minister of Municipal Affairs Derek Mombourquette, District 2 Councilor Earlene MacMullin put forward a motion that Mayor and Council also formally petition the province to audit the CBRM’s books. As she explained at the time:

[N]umerous times the province has been approached in regards to an audit and they’ve never come through, like, to open the books and say our funding’s not proper. Because we don’t have anything to hide, everything’s good, so I would like to add a number three that says we as a Council, Mayor and Council, are formally petitioning the province to come take a look at our books and take a look at our funding formula because, as [District 8 Councilor Amanda] McDougall had said, I think it goes hand in hand to this study.

In the end, the call for a provincial audit was passed as a separate motion. Here’s how the vote went:

Fast forward to the May 1 General Committee Meeting.

District 11 Councilor Kendra Coombes, citing growing public interest in and concern about the issue of equalization payments, put the subject out for discussion by Mayor and Council. Coombes suggested it was time they decided how they wanted to proceed in dealing with a situation which sees the CBRM receive roughly $15 million from the province in equalization each year while returning roughly $17 million in mandatory payments for education, corrections, public housing and the Property Valuation Services Corporation to the province.

In the course of discussion on Councilor Coombes’ “put up or shut up” motion, as she said she’d come to think of it, Councilor McDougall inquired as to the status of the February request for an audit. You can watch Mayor Cecil Clarke field this question on the video from the meeting. First he throws it to CAO Marie Walsh who says she believes Council passed a motion for a letter to be written to the province:

I think it was going to come from Mayor and Council so I don’t know [laughs] if that’s been written or not.

Clarke who, it would seem, knows nothing about such a motion himself, then consults Municipal Clerk Deborah Campbell Ryan and while waiting for her answer, reminds Council that audits have been requested in the past with no success.

He then tells Councilor McDougall:

It’s a matter of asking for it again in terms of what its…object would be.

McDougall says she thought that was precisely what they had agreed to do in February, ask again.

The Mayor says:

Yes, that’s what I’m saying, we’ll ask again, they didn’t accommodate the first time but asking again. So the Clerk’s going to check on exactly which format…

McDougall says:

So nothing was done since that motion?

To which Clarke replies:

I’m not certain.

Still from CBRM General Committee Meeting, 1 May 2018.

Still waiting for the Clerk, Clarke takes the opportunity to suggest the previously discussed Viability Study would accomplish the same ends as an audit. CAO Walsh backs him on this.

But McDougall suggests a provincial audit would complement the Viability Study (as, in fact, both McDougall and MacMullin had suggested in calling for the audit on February 27).

And then, having received an answer from the Clerk, Mayor Clarke says:

[J]ust for clarity, the Clerk did present the motion and it specifically says with the Auditor General but we would just say the Department as well, in terms of the letter that would go. So we’ll attach the motion itself that was received, we just printed it, so we’ll recirculate and send that out, Councilor.

Note, he doesn’t mention to whom the Clerk presented the motion.

At this point, Councilor MacMullin joins the discussion and she is not happy:

I’m actually, I’m very disappointed, I’m shocked and I’ve got to tell you, I’m a little angry in regards to that, because I had dealings with a lot of individuals discussing that and trying to clarify what we were looking to as opposed to what people thought, there was interviews on CBC. I actually, I feel silly right now…This doesn’t seem like the norm, to me, is this the norm?…[T]wo months go by and we don’t actually make the ask — we advertise that we did it but we don’t?

And now, with his back to the wall, Clarke says:

In terms of the request itself, normally that was just an oversight item, it’s not the fault of the Clerk. Normally those things that come by motion would go by a letter from the Clerk to the department… In this case, the Clerk sent the memo to me and I didn’t forward it on. That was my oversight, not the Clerk’s.

So, two months ago, Clarke was presented with a motion passed by council — passage of which he presided over, discussion of which he participated in, approval of which he voted for — calling on him to write the province requesting an audit and he simply forgot to do it? Forgot, in fact, that such a motion had even been passed?

Are you buying that? Because if so, I’ve got a piece of contaminated waterfront property you might be interested in…