From highways to health care, Ontario's auditor general chastises Ford government

Ontario's auditor general says she's voiced concerns with the Doug Ford government that she's being prevented from fully doing her job — to no avail.

But that didn't stop Bonnie Lysyk from tabling a whopping annual report that contains 15 individual value-for-money audits levelling harsh criticism of the government on major issues like its marquee highway-building plans and COVID-19 vaccine rollout, as well as smaller ones like the oversight of realtors and protections against money laundering in Ontario casinos.

She found:

• Highway and housing development are putting the environment and people's pocketbooks at risk, and decisions are often overly political. On several occasions, ministers decided that certain roads should be built over the expert recommendations of departmental staff. These decisions include the controversial Highway 413 and Bradford Bypass championed by the Ford government.
• A company incorporated at the start of the pandemic was hired by the government for testing and vaccine administration after enlisting the help of a lobbyist with close ties to the premier. It banked more than $13 million from the Ontario government at a hundreds-of-dollars-per-dose clip. Overall, problems with the province's vaccine rollout "sometimes undermined public confidence in vaccination."
• Ontario's realtor regulator is filled with realtors, and that's one of the reasons it's not serving homebuyers as well as it could. In 10 out of the 15 cases the AG's office reviewed in which a realtor was fined by the regulator, the fine was lower than the commission the agent got from the related transaction — meaning it's usually more profitable to break the code of ethics than to follow it.
• Undercover "mystery shoppers" hired by the auditor general were able to launder money through casinos on multiple occasions. The agents tested four casinos. At two, they were able to get clean casino cheques for between $4,900 and $10,750 "on multiple occasions, with limited play and no proof of casino winnings, effectively confirming that they could launder money."
• The government has failed to produce a long-term energy plan, and the province is heading for an electricity supply shortage that could leave ratepayers vulnerable to cost hikes. The province produced a surplus of energy for years but, due to a variety of factors, is now headed for a shortfall as early as 2025.
• Efforts to stop invasive species are sluggish and ineffective. Ontario's Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry takes an average of 44 months between completing a risk assessment for an invasive species and finally regulating it. The auditor general named 33 land-based invasive plants that the ministry is ignoring — several are freely sold by mainstream retailers like Home Depot.
• Average auto insurance premiums in the province increased by 14 per cent between 2017 and 2021, to $1,642. A government-commissioned report in 2017 called Ontario's auto insurance system "one of the least effective insurance systems in Canada" and recommended several changes, including adopting a "care not cash" approach, exploring better ways to care for people who are catastrophically injured, and making lawyers' contingency fees more transparent. But little action has been taken so far on the report's recommendations.
• Sensitive personal data in areas like health and corrections are not being consistently encrypted. Looking at four ministries, including the Ministry of Health, the AG found that "sensi­tive and personal information was not being encrypted in any of them as required by the security standard." As well, the province does not track cybersecurity risks that relate to personal data stored by contractors, which applies to 140 systems related to the Ontario Public Service.
• The Ministry of Natural Resources and Forestry has just five inspectors to keep track of Ontario's 27,000 oil and gas wells. More than 15,300 of the wells were known to be abandoned, while the ministry couldn't say whether another 7,300 were abandoned or not. "Wells that are poorly maintained and improperly plugged can lead to contaminants getting into the province’s groundwater or rising to the land surface around the well," the report warns.
• The Progressive Conservative government spent about $13.75 million on ads she deems to be partisan. That includes an "Ontario is Getting Stronger" campaign the AG says was designed to foster a positive impression of government and ran not long before the 2022 election.

But in the forward to her report, Lysyk wrote that, over the last year, she's become concerned about lacking access to the information and the staff of the organizations and programs she audits, as well as her ability to speak freely at the legislative committee dedicated to studying her reports.

"While there are those who would like to change these practices going forward, it is my hope that the office’s powers and independence, including its unfettered access to information and people, and the auditor general’s involvement with the committee, remain undiminished," she wrote. "These historical practices are critically important to protect the Office of the Auditor General’s ability to provide objective, non-partisan and fact-based information to all members of the legislature and Ontarians."

She told reporters she's raised her concerns with the government that the organizations she audits "can hide behind the veil of privilege" by claiming that information is privileged and not letting her office verify whether that's actually true.

"Does it concern me? It absolutely concerns me. Have I expressed my concern? Yes. Have I expressed it to no avail? Yes."

During the years Kathleen Wynne's Liberal government was in power, the Progressive Conservatives enthusiastically allied themselves with Lysyk in her criticisms of the government. Now that they're in power, the Tories' tone has shifted to respectful disagreement with the auditor.

Lysyk has less than a year left in her appointment.

With files from Jack Hauen, Patrick Cain, Aidan Chamandy, Charlie Pinkerton and the Canadian Press.