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Column: FOGs and donors dominate provincial gov. appointments

Another vacancy in a public boardroom and another BC Liberal party supporter ready and willing to fill it.
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Another vacancy in a public boardroom and another BC Liberal party supporter ready and willing to fill it.

News that Frank Carson, a partner at Victoria law firm Cox, Taylor, was appointed chair of BC Transit’s board of directors earlier this month was met with the expected cynicism. Carson has been described as well-connected to the BC Liberals. His wife is executive director of the BC Liberal caucus.

One upside with his new post is he can comfortably talk shop with sympathetic colleagues at the office. Four of the other 13 lawyers at Cox, Taylor are also recipients of B.C. government appointments. What are the odds?

Given that there are likely thousands of qualified candidates in B.C., the government seems surprisingly short of nominees.

You would have thought BC Hydro president and CEO Jessica McDonald already had her hands full with Site C, yet she’s also the vice-chair of the board at ICBC.

In 2014, she was paid $13,959 in fees for attending five ICBC meetings over six months. Salary top-ups are catching on.

Joining her on the ICBC board are former MLAs Barry Penner and Sheila Orr, who, between them, sit on five public boards. Nine other former MLAs are on the appointee gravy train as well.

While the government may be short of prospective candidates, it’s not short of boards. They’re a patronage trough. Seats on the boards of more than 300 public agencies are available as rewards for a BC Liberal donor or friend of government (FOG).

Looking at 33 of them — including the BC Lottery corporation, PAVCO, the province’s six health authorities, the Vancouver Police Board, three universities and two airport authorities — at least 166 of the 248 board members are party donors or FOGs.

Fifty-eight individuals sit on the boards of the provincial health authority and its five regional authorities, and 35 are donors while two others are FOGs.

For the fiscal year ending March 31, 2016, they received a total of $897,142 in retainers, fees and expenses. Only one — Wynne Powell — didn’t accept his pay.

Among their ranks are a car dealer, the director of communications for BC LNG Alliance, a former CEO of the Canadian Home Builders’ Association of BC, a cross-border tax consultant and four property developers.

Just seven of the 58 have a background in health care.

And these are not titular positions.

Under the Hospital Act, the boards are “ultimately responsible for approving physician privileges.”

As a 2012 KPMG report for the B.C. health ministry pointed out: “Although boards receive reports and approve privileges, most directors noted that they had to have a high level of trust that the processes within the authority were being followed… [but] there is little evidence, by way of audit or similar routine checks, to give boards comfort that these processes have been followed.”

Not all the boards are stacked, likely more by legislative necessity than desire.

The Organized Crime Agency of BC is bereft of donors. Others are entirely overseen by senior public employees, such as the BC Immigrant Investment Fund. And some boards have highly qualified individuals in the right role.

But too many are stacked, and the potential checks and balances they could provide fall by the wayside.

And there are some odd matches among the appointments. Perhaps it was an attempt at dark humour to appoint a coroner to the Agricultural Land Commission, albeit a coroner with dairy experience?

 

Dermod Travis is executive director of IntegrityBC.

www.integritybc.ca

 

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