s

Opinion

by Hubert Beyer.
Special to The Review

VICTORIA — I wonder whose
trough Finance Minister Mel Cou-
velier thinks his snout is in? The
same question, I suppose,
occurred to him. After hesitating
for two days and perhaps with
some encouragement from his
boss, Premier Vander Zalm, Cou-
velier decided to offer a niggling
apology to Auditor General
George Morfitt.

Couvelier’s response to Mor-
fitt’s latest annual report was abso-
lutely incredible. It was uncouth in
the extreme and set a new low for
politics, something one might have
thought impossible in British
Columbia.

“Someone who’s got his snout
in the public trough should have
the wit to deal with issues he’s
mandated to deal with. I have to
question the propriety of Mr. Mor-
fitt, who is basically a bean-
counter, dealing with policy
issues,” Couvelier said following
the release of Morfitt’s report. -

Bean-counter, eh? Perhaps, Min-
ister, you would like to explain
why you have never objected to
paying a bean-counter $95,000 a
year. I honestly wonder about the
propriety of a finance minister
who would squander the taxpay-
ers’ money in such a frivolous
fashion.

I also wonder about the pro-
puety of a cabinet minister msult-
ing an officer of the legislature.
Like the ombudsman, the auditor
general is appointed by and
responsible to the legislature, not
the government.

Couvelier’s unpardonable out-

burst was triggered by Morfitt’s

annual report, a devastating indict-
ment of the government’s account-
ing practices and privatization pro-

The report says the govern-
ment’s much-touted Budget Sta-

_bilization Fund is an empty

account with no banking or invest-
ment activities.

“Monies transferred by the gov-
emment into the budget stabiliza-
tion fund to March 31, 1989, were,
in effect, simultaneously loaned
back to the general fund, which
then credited interest at going
market rates back to the budget
stabilization fund in retum for use
of its money,” Morfitt says in his
Teport.

The NDP has said all along that
the balanced budget was a lie, but
convincing and politically unbi-
ased proof that we have all been
hoodwinked by our friendly Social
Credit government, didn’t come
until about a week ago.

It was Peat Marwick Thorne,

|+Whose snout is in which trough?

Canada’s largest accounting firm,
that did the first real damage to the
government's reputation for fiscal
prowess. It said the budget wasn’t
balanced and there was no money
in the B.S: Fund.

And now, the auditor general
says the same thing in even stron-
ger and more convincing terms.
The highways ministry’s privatiza-
tion of road and bridge mainte-
nance, says Morfitt, has sacrificed
quality control and cost efficiency.
The sale of the provincial environ-
ment laboratories, the report says,
ended up costing more money
than had the government kept it.

The report is so devastating, it
called for intensive damage con-
trol, but for whatever reasons, the
government chose to go on the
attack instead.

Couvelier refused to apologize
to Morfitt, issuing a “statement”
instead which referred to his
intemperate and offensive remarks
as a “misunderstanding.”

The controversy will haunt the
Socreds, and so it should. It will
give credence to the NDP’s claims
of Socred fiscal bungling. And
that’s something that could really
hurt the government at election
time.

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