At the Manitoba Legislature, and within our parliamentary system, there are number of ways to ensure government is operating in an open and transparent way. Included in this is the daily Question Period, which allows the official opposition a chance to put questions to the government. Unfortunately, the types of answers government Ministers give rarely provide much information.
Committee hearings often receive much less attention but are usually much more effective when it comes to giving proper scrutiny of how government, crown corporations and independent offices are working. Often at these committees, elected members of the legislature get to ask the non-elected head officials of these agencies questions. The answers are often very insightful and helpful in accessing the success of a particular crown corporation or office.
The main problem with the committee system is that it relies almost entirely on the willingness of government to call the committee. There is no minimum number of times a year that the government needs to call most committees. The unfortunate consequence is that the government can simply avoid having issues embarrassing to it discussed at a committee by not calling the committee. As well, even when committees are scheduled, they often only sit for a very short time. Again, the government controls the length of time a committee sits.
The most recent example of the abuse of this power occurred earlier this week when a committee hearing was called to examine annual election reports. This is an opportunity for MLA’s to ask questions of the Chief Elections Officer for the province about the conduct of elections and other issues related to elections. While it is a valuable opportunity, it is a rare one. The meeting held on Monday night was the first the NDP government had called in almost a year.
The lack of meetings the government allows doesn’t seem to bother Premier Gary Doer. He was quite proud of the fact that the committee to examine the election reports had been called 8 times in the past decade. To Mr. Doer, that seemed like working hard.
Making matters worse, the NDP felt sensitive about the questions being asked at the meeting Monday night so they quickly decided to shut the meeting down after only an hour and a half of questioning. The questions dealt with $76,000 the NDP government was forced to pay back after the 1999 election as a result of filing 13 incorrect election claims from 13 NDP election campaigns.
Because Mr. Doer didn’t like having this affair discussed, he simply had NDP committee members vote to shut down the committee. And it is doubtful, given his past practice, that he intends to call the committee to look at the issue again for at least another year. The NDP government needs to spend more time strengthening democracy and less time trying to stifle it.
