Goldie Ghamari - March 04, 2019


Speech： Select Committee on Financial Transparency

Topics
financial transparency committee
Hosted by
Goldie Ghamari
Mentioned
Speaker Ford Kathleen Wynne Fidelli Fideli
Debate： Safe and Supportive Classrooms Act Question Period： Supporting Francophone Communities in Ontario

Episode Stats


Length

13 minutes

Words per minute

127.42

Word count

1,738

Sentence count

97


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

The Independent Financial Commission of Inquiry (IFI) released a 53-page report on the Auditor General's audit of Ontario's finances in 2017 and 2018. The report detailed a $3.7 billion deficit, a surplus of $600 million, and a $15 billion deficit. The committee will investigate the accounting practices, decision-making, and policy objectives of the previous government, and other aspects of the report the committee deems relevant.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Topics generated with Qwen2.5-3B-Instruct.
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 Mr. Speaker, when governments pass legislation to make their own accounting rules that serve
00:00:14.340 to obfuscate the impact of their financial decisions, their financial statements become
00:00:20.060 unreliable. That is a direct quote from the Auditor General of Ontario. It is the first
00:00:27.180 thing that she writes in her 53-page report.
00:00:32.420 Mr. Speaker,
00:00:34.520 This morning, Minister Fideli moved that a select committee
00:00:39.280 on financial transparency be appointed to consider and
00:00:43.220 report to the House its observations and recommendations
00:00:46.740 with respect to the report submitted by the Independent Financial
00:00:51.160 Commission of Inquiry, and that the committee investigate
00:00:55.100 and report on the accounting practices, decision-making, and policy objectives of the previous government
00:01:01.020 or any other aspect of the report that the committee deems relevant,
00:01:05.620 and that the committee have the power to send for persons, papers, and things.
00:01:11.280 And that's an important point, Mr. Speaker, that I will be referring back to.
00:01:16.380 And that the committee be composed of six members of the party forming government,
00:01:20.740 three members of the official opposition,
00:01:22.500 and that the committee be authorized to meet at the call of the Chair
00:01:26.260 and that it be given priority to use the amethyst room for its meetings
00:01:30.560 and that it shall present, or if the House is not meeting,
00:01:34.720 release by depositing with the Clerk of Assembly
00:01:37.080 its interim report by November 1, 2018
00:01:41.440 and its final report by December 13, 2018.
00:01:47.180 Mr. Speaker, we campaigned on a promise
00:01:51.980 to be efficient and to be reliable and to respect taxpayer dollars.
00:01:58.900 And for one, Mr. Speaker, I am very excited and I'm very proud
00:02:03.780 to see this committee is going to be working very hard
00:02:07.600 to come up with an interim report in just six weeks.
00:02:17.300 And to come up with its final report, Mr. Speaker,
00:02:21.700 in two months this is a government that's here to work hard for the people mr speaker
00:02:28.180 we have started early we have been non-stop and we're going to continue moving forward again mr
00:02:35.060 speaker i'm going to echo my statements from yesterday my comments and that after 15 years
00:02:40.180 of liberal stagnation we need to get ontario back on track and this committee thank you
00:02:50.900 And this committee, Mr. Speaker, is just another step in that process.
00:02:55.460 It's just another way to move forward and to get things done.
00:03:01.060 Because, Mr. Speaker, we have a very serious situation here in Ontario.
00:03:07.720 First, our public accounts.
00:03:10.380 The Liberals claimed that there was a $600 million surplus in the 2017-2018 budget.
00:03:16.240 However, at that time, we learned that instead there was a $3.7 billion deficit.
00:03:24.980 Second, the Auditor-General has approved and signed off on these public accounts in 2017 and 2018.
00:03:33.400 In fact, this is the first time that she had signed the government's books with a clean slate in three years.
00:03:41.480 Previously, Mr. Speaker, the Liberal government had only a qualified opinion, and a qualified
00:03:51.400 opinion means that there were outstanding, unanswered questions by the government.
00:03:57.160 Mr. Speaker, how can there be any questions outstanding?
00:04:01.340 Minister Fidelli said it best.
00:04:02.940 This is accounting.
00:04:04.140 The numbers either add up or they don't.
00:04:06.880 There's no ambiguity.
00:04:07.880 There are no grey areas.
00:04:10.300 You look at the numbers, you add it up, and you need to balance the budget at the end
00:04:13.820 of the day.
00:04:14.980 So why was there any ambiguities?
00:04:17.980 Why was the Liberal government refusing to answer questions and refusing to give the
00:04:24.360 Auditor-General all of the necessary documents that she needed in order to make a proper
00:04:31.540 statement on the budget?
00:04:34.520 In fact, Mr. Speaker, we have found that this past week, despite their claims of a surplus,
00:04:40.540 we are instead facing a $15 billion deficit.
00:04:45.980 And that's shameful, Mr. Speaker, because that deficit is being paid for by the people of Ontario.
00:04:53.640 That is money that people are paying in taxes,
00:04:57.560 and instead of putting that money towards services like health care or education or anything else,
00:05:04.220 That money is going to pay off interest.
00:05:08.640 The Liberals also claimed, Mr. Speaker, that their budget had $1.4 billion of efficiencies.
00:05:17.080 However, the Commission's findings showed that, again, there were absolutely zero efficiencies in their budget.
00:05:24.000 There was nothing in the budget relating to any potential savings,
00:05:27.520 and there was nothing in the budget outlining any ambitious programs that could lead to such efficiencies.
00:05:34.220 so mr speaker that's the purpose of this select committee it's to get to the bottom
00:05:40.760 about how somebody could say that there was a 3.7 billion dollar deficit when it wasn't true or how
00:05:48.620 somebody could say that there was a 15 billion dollar deficit when it wasn't true but the real
00:05:55.940 issue mr speaker is not about who said what and it's not about whether or not the 3.7
00:06:02.460 was accurate or the $15 billion was accurate.
00:06:05.180 The real issue is the breadth and depth that the Liberals went through
00:06:12.040 to make sure we could never put this financial map backwards
00:06:15.800 and put it back together to understand exactly and precisely what they did.
00:06:27.100 Well, Mr. Speaker, their plan failed.
00:06:29.560 and this select committee that we are going to be establishing that select committee is going to go
00:06:38.980 back and it's going to retrace the steps that the government previous government made and that
00:06:44.780 brings me to that point i made mr speaker about the committee having the power to send for persons
00:06:50.620 papers and things because unlike the previous government we campaigned on responsibility
00:06:58.120 and accountability and trust.
00:07:01.280 And we are going to get to the bottom of what happened.
00:07:04.460 And, Mr. Speaker, the people that the committee calls,
00:07:08.700 they will not be able to rely on ministerial privilege
00:07:11.480 or confidentiality or anything like that.
00:07:14.540 When this committee calls for a person
00:07:17.520 or calls for a document or calls for anything else,
00:07:21.840 they will have to bring it.
00:07:23.080 It will have to be brought to them.
00:07:28.120 Mr. Speaker, Premier Ford announced that initial commission of inquiry back in July,
00:07:37.280 and it's not uncommon in politics for a new government to call the previous government's
00:07:42.320 numbers into question. It's something that's done all the time. But, Mr. Speaker, what
00:07:49.360 happened under this last government is very different than any other new government taking
00:07:55.540 over. All you have to do is look at the Auditor General's last report on the state of government.
00:08:01.300 She reviewed the Liberals' pre-election report on finances, and she concluded
00:08:06.020 that their numbers were not a reasonable presentation of Ontario's finances.
00:08:12.420 That's really serious to hear from an Auditor General. She also followed up on why the numbers
00:08:18.660 don't add up she said the government is making up its own accounting rules and then mr speaker
00:08:26.100 she used terminology like conceal bogus deceptive and unreliable imagine that mr speaker the auditor
00:08:36.380 general called the previous liberal government deceptive and unreliable and i think mr speaker
00:08:44.200 that message was heard loud and clear not just by our party not just by the official opposition
00:08:51.380 but by ontarians all across the province and we see that in the election results mr speaker we
00:08:58.640 see that on june 7 ontarians made a choice and they decided that they deserve better and indeed
00:09:06.860 they do deserve better than a government that is deceptive and unreliable if i could just for
00:09:15.040 clarification as i recall the auditor general said the practices were that not not the government
00:09:23.260 the practices of the government were deceptive and unreliable yes and mr speaker what we're
00:09:31.560 witnessing right now is without precedent in recent politics, and this has never happened.
00:09:37.540 When taken together, the conclusions of the Auditor General and the Commission of Inquiry
00:09:42.520 represent a scathing indictment of how Kathleen Wynne and the Liberals abused the public's trust.
00:09:50.140 They pursued a reckless spree of debt-financed spending and then deliberately deployed a
00:09:55.340 series of accounting tricks to hide the resulting cost from the public. This result is the crippling
00:10:04.220 hidden debt that is only now being brought forward. It puts our very future in jeopardy.
00:10:10.840 And I echo the comments of my colleague from Kitchener-Conestoga in that what they have done is putting our very future in jeopardy.
00:10:34.180 I don't have five children myself, Mr. Speaker.
00:10:36.840 God bless his wife.
00:10:39.100 I can't imagine what she's gone through, but it's putting the future of all of our
00:10:46.820 children, our grandchildren and their grandchildren in jeopardy.
00:10:52.900 The safety nets that we need are being used up or were being used up by the Liberal government.
00:11:03.040 So Mr. Speaker, this select committee is going to get to the bottom of who knew what
00:11:08.040 and who did what about it, and we're finally going to learn the truth, because that is
00:11:13.800 what Ontarians expect of us, and that is what we owe it to them as their government.
00:11:27.880 What happened, Mr. Speaker, should never again happen in Ontario.
00:11:33.920 In fact, it should never happen again anywhere in Canada.
00:11:39.800 And their accountability, the Liberal Party's accountability, did not end on Election Day.
00:11:46.340 It began on Election Day, Mr. Speaker.
00:11:54.340 It began on Election Day when Premier Ford said, people deserve answers, and we are here
00:12:00.060 to ensure that the people get those answers, because we are a government for the people.
00:12:12.860 Mr. Speaker, it's important as well to acknowledge the divide between what the independent legislative
00:12:20.440 officers are saying that the government is doing and what the government says that it
00:12:25.360 is doing, and that divide grew very, very large last year.
00:12:31.360 Mr. Speaker, I am proud to be part of the Committee on Public Accounts, and I look forward
00:12:37.740 to working with the Auditor-General and establishing a strong and positive relationship between
00:12:43.100 government and our independent legislative officers, because at the end of the day,
00:12:49.220 we need to work together to do what's best for the people of Ontario.
00:12:53.840 We need to work together to ensure that we are being responsible with their money.
00:13:00.160 Because it is not our money.
00:13:01.940 It's not something that we can toy around and play around and spend at whim.
00:13:06.760 This is the money that is earned from people who work long hours, sometimes back-breaking
00:13:12.980 labour, and they need to pinch every penny.
00:13:17.840 At the same time, we need to respect that, and we need to make sure it's taken care
00:13:22.220 of.
00:13:23.220 why I support this committee and motion seven. Thank you, Mr. Speaker.
00:13:31.060 Thank you. And I would remind all members when we're speaking of a former premier or another
00:13:38.120 member.