Winnipeg Free Press

Winnipeg Free Press (Newspaper) - May 24, 1985, Winnipeg, Manitoba Winnipeg free press May 7 focus this is the Way the Money goes by Carol Goar special to the free press sometimes the Small abuses shout the last in the Wake of several harrowing air Canada the government decided to set up a new aviation safety headed by Montreal lawyer Bernard Des while Lloyd the transport minister of the was still in the process of getting the new Board Deschenes arrived on the claiming he needed time to familiarize himself with his assignments during this learning he persuaded transport officials to put him on a Short term paying a which he claimed was the Market rate for his services As a As he received As a reimbursement for travel and accommodation prior to his by the time the Board officially came into being on May Des Chenes had chalked up fees and expenses of in order to cover this unforeseen the department had to dip into funds earmarked for other on june transport officials went to Treasury the Agency which controls Federal and requested retroactive approval of the contract and funds to replenish their when a Treasury Board officer questioned rather unorthodox he was told by one of Axworthy what bothers about this one at this very my minister has at least 100 people reporting directly to his office on personal service for any taxpayer who has Ever wondered wonder How thousands of dollars slip Between the cracks in this Small Story tells it there is nothing particularly sin ister about the it is a rather Ordinary example of the kind of sloppiness and moral lassitude that pervades government thick review the Deschenes Story is buried in thick review of government contracting which has been circulating in Ottawa corridors of Power for five the unpublished 123page document chronicles a system so Rife with abuse and mismanagement that its William a senior Treasury Board is forced to the conclusion that the ways in which Many departmental systems Are manipulated Are Well beyond a Nom Inal defence of innocent miss Ere the study was commissioned in january of 1984 and completed last although Sherry does not set a Dollar value on the waste he he says the government could million by cleaning up its contracting under the current virtually every one of the 60 departments and agencies of the Federal govern ment contracts for goods and ser Only the largest contracts those exceeding for for and for consultants with minor exceptions must be approved by Treasury Sherry searched in vain for a set of common standards and he found an admixture of 60odd procurement he looked for a coordinated set of practices and instead he found a Hodgepodge of management styles ranging from adequate to in in most he found and often incompetent people in charge of one cannot escape the conclusion that the majority of departmental contracting activities Are super Vised by senior Public servants with completely inadequate procurement experience to match their current one departments source list consisted of the yellow pages in the local phone another department acknowledged that it want keeping proper records nor monitoring its contracts to see if got what it paid its excuse due to re source corrective Mea sures have been but even More disturbing than these careless methods and Cavalier attitudes was the widespread Evi Dence of deliberate d instead of asking Treasury Board to authorize Large departments would sign them and seek approval after the As in the Deschenes o another Way of avoiding trea sury Board scrutiny was to split a Large contract into several Small ones All going to the same person or lucrative contract d a department would Lay off an employee to meet Federal cos Cut Ting then turn around and hire the same person under a Lucra Tive government d consultants hired on contract were often paid at questionable rates and received questionable expense d signed contracts were amended after the fact authorize increase their extend their deadline or change their departmental contracting for services in the Federal government appears to be in a lamentable Sherry with relatively minor the faults run he recommends that All Federal departments and agencies be required to do their contracting through one the department of Supply and it has trained Legal computerized lists of suppliers and employees who understand the meaning of prudence and he also urges the government to adopt a uniform set of rules with a Builtin code of ethics All government the report has been available to the government since Treasury Board president Bob de Cotret has not commented on the but sources in his depart ment say he is aware of senior departmental officials Are angry that the study leaked out before it received their official its financial ramifications could be the government spends billion every year on equipment and supplies and billion in consultants Sherry Reform plan seems eminently in it would be surprising if it haunt occurred to someone years the problem in Ottawa is rarely a Lack of Good its a Lack of mul seen in the budget that Michael Wilson produced it is a not not Good enough somewhere along the the budgets goals became blurred Ottawa Tough but fair As prime minister Mulroney has been promising us absolutely a budget that will create the satisfying and durable jobs that and particularly Young canadians want and to a considerable de truly a budget that makes a fundamental break with the As Michael Wilson claimed in his opening remarks thursday after for better and for a budget that encourages enter and properly out to the Point of a budget that sets the government up to delicately nibble at the incomes of Ordinary with no visible rules or standards about who should be making and with what a budget after offers few signs that it is reducing the weight of government in our lives save for a plan to rejigs but not alter in Toto the funds available for spending by like so Many others before a budget that applies just a lick and a Promise to the Job of deficit despite a Golden of ran away from the task of paring Back unneeded finance minister Michael Wil son started off in the right direction in his budget then something went not impressive one might expect some impress Ive action on the Job creation front from a budget that hoists the Capi Tal gains tax so that might be encouraged to but a tax that allows a Alfmil Lindol Lar lifetime exemption from Capi Tal gains tax provides a tax shelter that Only those who Are already extraordinarily privileged could aspire is this government Ca Joan Cohen Ottawa editor tearing unfairly to these privileged few perhaps the judgment has to be but take just two Possi ble drawn from the new budget there is the fact in Calendar year the loss to the Federal Treasury from the measure is expected to be a sum far in excess of All the new Money raised from personal in come taxes in when some of the new personal tax measures truly take the expected loss million exceeds the gain from any one of the major personal tax changes de signed to raise government reve Bonanza the government offers people who chalked up capital gains before budget Day this year the Bonanza of a perhaps unprecedented retroactive tax those who pocket the gain obviously will not but one might Well ask what principles Are at when such benefits Are casually handed Michael Wilsons fundamental break with the past features an approach As he rewards business rather than subsidizing Effort not a bad shift in emphasis in a country that relies All too heavily on papa govern ments in this category Falls the capital gains tax which will allow investors to without the payoff from their profitable in it too comes the pro posed seven percent reduction in corporate that will replace Grants and tax exemptions now available to but even As free Enterprise is the budget Ushers in another break with the past at least with an important 10year old under which indexing protects canadians against the ravages of inflation in their Deal Ings with indexing of personal tax exemptions and of tax brackets ensured canadians that their Basic incomes remained intact when inflation lowered the value of the it also protected the value of the Basic old age Security pay the indexing is to be partially allowing in comes of virtually All canadians to be eroded by up to three per cent a year and in the Case of the old age Security despite the concerns raised in health minister Jake Epps recent study of social the child tax credit will be jacked up for the next three but be paid to Ever fewer the full payments will go to families earning up to but As incomes Rise with partial de indexing Means that income eligibility will not keep paying permanently there will be income sur taxes imposed on higher income earners for an 18month and even a Brief corporate but there is a pattern that to the budget that has Ordinary canadians paying permanently and cumulatively to achieve a lowering of the and better off canadians and their businesses getting suppl Side encouragement and tax even the program review of Erik Nielsen study group on Industrial taxes seems to reflect this approach to tax of that groups Many proposals for removing business tax one of the very few adopted As a budget measure involved slapping a sales tax on hitherto exempt most of these being consumer products such As pet foods and health and Beauty sup As has been widely reported Over the past couple of the Bud get that finance minister Wilson stood up to read in the commons thursday is looked on As being something less than a Docu in a possibly unprecedented it was jointly inspired and fussed Over by the prime Leaden hand the impulse that might have made this document one which at once lifted the Leaden hand of government and gave free Enterprise some encouragement to produce somewhere along the Way became one suspects that the explanation lies in this joint author How else can one explain Why the Wilson budget could Only find about million in spending cuts for this when Darcy Mckeough a key participant in Erik Nielsen program review of just the other Day that spending cuts and tax shelter changes producing some billion in savings for this year were within reach Why is there so Little to show for the six month Effort by the Nielsen group company labor leaders and top seven months after Wilson promised to make deficit cutting a has he dared offer Only a billion new net deficit reduction for this year in his All important budget not not not nearly Good free Trade stance splits Pawley from his party Premier Howard Pawley will not have to explain to Many Manitoban the logic of his sudden switch from the party line against free Trade Between Canada and the to one of support for a comprehensive common Between the two he May have a bit More difficulty when he next meets de Broadbent in Ottawa or Bob Rae in last week our Premier put his name to a document calling for a comprehensive com Mon Market arrangement Between Canada and the United states that would provide Lon term Access to each others markets without quotas and other the Premier justified his switch in position by taking responsibility for a sentence which said where jobs Are threatened by such a new trading provisions for an extensive period of adjustment will have to be made for particular sectors and those adversely by his support behind a comprehensive common the Premier did put himself at Odds with his the nip feels so strongly about the Issue that it just two months a position paper opposing any Extension of present trading arrangements Between Canada and the it is possible that Pawley agreed to the free Trade communique issued by the West Ern premiers because it called free Trade a common it is possible that Pawley has forgotten that the worlds Only example of a common the european economic As one of its founding eventual political Union among the participating it is unlikely that Pawley would apply this definition to the term common Market As it is used in the communique he which Calls for an Fred Cleversey i k open Border Between Canada and the free Trade makes sense for any number of free Trade would not infringe on Canadas political and cultural ind Epen free Trade would Hurt Only those Canadian firms that cannot live without even after enjoying such Protection for free Trade would open the much larger markets to Canadian firms which need no and which Are champing at the bit to expand beyond Cana Das without free Trade these firms have Only one Choice to move to the Premier Pawley is certainly right in giving his support to the of he has to Deal with his own the party does not even admit that Hawleys previous that of sector Bisector has Peter Lougheed says sector sector negotiations Are simply attempts to take the strawberries out of the the nip position paper states the Bottom line of any of these talks should be what we Are asked to give up to secure any free Trade agreement in any what does the nip favor quite a controlled us Posi Tion paper states Canada must reject the game of International Competition because it is the More productive we become the More our workers Are thrown out of perhaps Pawley can introduce his party colleagues to the world he talks about in the perhaps he can Point out had Canad followed the nip policy in the we would probably possess the finest buggy hip factories in the world and could take advantage of the Market in the nip policy paper on Trade stresses the need for canadians to buy Canadian made perhaps Pawley will Point out to his party As has been argued by professor Richard Lipsey of Queens univer any country which insists on producing products which can be produced cheaper elsewhere forces itself to accept the living standards of that the nip quotes a former Liberal Federal Cabinet Eric As suggest ing if we make International Competition our we will become just another economic factory in a global economic rat it is to be will Point out the consequences of opting out of the he May Point to the living standards that exist where countries have followed this philos particularly countries that do not As their closest neighbor an open door policy toward entrepreneurs who want to get into the race and who Are willing to invest their Money where a Slot is the biggest question is whether in those three hours closeted with premiers Bennett and got a glimpse of the real world and saw the logic of the arguments being pre or whether he was simply or into going along with the commune the Concession he the adjust ment period for jobs that Are is simply window another use of the Federal or provincial treasuries to Blunt the consequences of whether he fully realized it or Pawley has opted to support the global economic rat his fellow Western premiers be Lieve this course is the one to follow in order to produce a better Standard of living for their his party believes u is a course designed to put pressure on present wage Levels and that it Means in order to raise our Standard of living we must lower what Pawley has his party defies common it is a decision that can be blamed on no one it was taken by four men sitting in a hotel room while their brain trusts cooled their heels seven floors doonesbury by Garry Trudeau we cwt Promise this bum and me a Way to get through not Ltd i th5000k i jct Rrt Mem i i cant 00 wow i ;