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Auditor-General rips government involving land use decision
Jul 17, 2008
By Jonathan Fowlie
<jfowlie@png.canwest.com>
VICTORIA - The B.C. government made a major, controversial land-use decision on Vancouver Island without adequate consultation or proper regard for the public interest, Auditor-General John Doyle said in a scathing report Wednesday.
Though the report contains no recommendations, it raises broad concerns about the leadership style of Premier Gordon Campbell's Liberal government, and about its openness to consult the public on major decisions.
Doyle said his office has launched a separate review into the "direction and guidance provided to ministries and agencies on the consultation process," the results of which he hopes to release later this year.
"It seems to me citizens should expect government to go through these kinds of decisions carefully, and be fully briefed, before those decisions are actually made," Doyle told a news conference - his first since becoming B.C. auditor-general last October.
"I can't see, looking at the evidence we've collected [in this specific case] ... that they did enough work to be able to support the decision," he said.
But the government came out swinging, calling the tone of Doyle's report "neither neutral nor factual."
"We are offended by this report, we think it is totally inappropriate and if Mr. Doyle thinks this is the way we do business in Canada, he's dead wrong," said Forests Minister Pat Bell, who took over the portfolio in a cabinet shuffle last month.
"It is in my view unprofessional, lacking of integrity. He has not done his homework," Bell added.
Before coming to B.C., Doyle worked in the office of the auditor-general of Western Australia.
John Horgan, the New Democratic Party MLA for Malahat-Juan de Fuca, responded to Bell's attack by calling it "classless."
"Rather than listen to the [report's conclusions], which confirm what the public have been saying right from January 2007 - no process, no consultation, no compensation, not in the public interest - ... their response is to be aggressive and yell," he said.
"Classless is what comes to mind."
In his report, Doyle reviewed a decision made in January 2007 by then forests minister Rich Coleman to remove 28,000 hectares of private lands from three coastal tree farm licences.
The lands belong to Western Forest Products, which has since provisionally sold 2,500 hectares on southwestern Vancouver Island to a private developer.
The decision drew the ire of first nations, environmental groups and local land owners.
"The public interest was totally betrayed by the actions of this government," said Vicky Husband, an environmentalist representing opponents to development in the Island community of Jordan River.
"There was absolutely no consultation, not even an effort at compensation, no discussion with the regional governments, no discussion with the local residents who were going to be affected," Husband said as she talked to reporters on the steps of the legislature.
Western Forest Products chief operating officer Duncan Kerr said he was happy with the report, saying it ends speculation the auditor-general was going to attempt to reverse the government's decision.
"We were very confident we had done nothing wrong," he said. "All that has been confirmed."
Doyle's report did not take issue with the government actually removing land from tree farm licences, nor with the minister's right to make such a decision.
Rather, he challenged the government on the process it used to form the basis of the decision.
Doyle said that during his investigation, Coleman told him he had considered only a briefing note when making his decision - a document Doyle described as "inadequate for the job."
"The minister, as the final check on the process and the statutory decision-maker, did not do enough to ensure that due regard was given to the public interest, given the magnitude of the decision," his report said.
Doyle made no specific recommendations, saying that was because there is little private land remaining in tree-farm licences in B.C.
Coleman was not available for comment on Wednesday, though Bell spoke in his defence.
"The decisions made to help support Western Forrest Products through the removal of this land I think were absolutely appropriate and should be supported," he said, proceeding again to attack the auditor-general.
"Mr. Doyle assumes ministers only take into account the specific information that is laid to them in the immediacy of the decision. Clearly that is not correct," Bell said, adding that ministers accumulate a wide variety of information and knowledge as they work within a portfolio.
Bell also took issue with Doyle's inclusion of information that Bell thought to be misleading, such as an allegation of insider trading around the time of the government's decision, and information about donations to the Liberal party.
Doyle said he passed concerns about unusual trading volumes of Western Forest Products stock around the time of the deal onto the B.C. Securities and Exchange Commission for investigation.
The commission has since done a review and determined there was insufficient evidence to proceed with an investigation - a fact not included in Doyle's report.
Doyle pointed out in his report that Western Forest Products donated $60,470 to the BC Liberal Party from 2005 to 2007.
He said Wednesday he did not think that played a role in the government's decision, but he had included the information "for completeness."
Doyle said he thinks his review was neutral and objective, but that he expected and understands the negative reaction.
"To be realistic, I expected there to be some push-back," he said.
"It would be fair to say there should always be tension between those who review what government does and the government itself.
"That has been, and will be, a feature of my role and people in my position forever, I suspect, and across all jurisdictions."
The controversy is over stretches of Vancouver Island land granted to the Esquimalt & Nanaimo Railway in 1884 for building a rail line between Victoria and Courtenay. The land was acquired parcel by parcel by forest companies over the years.
In the 1950s, in exchange for greater access to Crown timber, owners put much of the private land in tree-farm licences, subjecting them to the same logging rules that governed Crown lands.
Over the last decade, the companies have sought to have those lands removed from the licences, relieving them of government logging regulation and opening up increased log exports and sale of some of the land for real estate development.
Coleman approved the deletion of about 28,000 hectares of private lands from Western's tree farm licences in 2007. In all, the Liberal government has removed almost 120,000 hectares from tree farm licences since 2004.
Though the report contains no recommendations, it raises broad concerns about the leadership style of Premier Gordon Campbell's Liberal government, and about its openness to consult the public on major decisions.
Doyle said his office has launched a separate review into the "direction and guidance provided to ministries and agencies on the consultation process," the results of which he hopes to release later this year.
"It seems to me citizens should expect government to go through these kinds of decisions carefully, and be fully briefed, before those decisions are actually made," Doyle told a news conference - his first since becoming B.C. auditor-general last October.
"I can't see, looking at the evidence we've collected [in this specific case] ... that they did enough work to be able to support the decision," he said.
But the government came out swinging, calling the tone of Doyle's report "neither neutral nor factual."
"We are offended by this report, we think it is totally inappropriate and if Mr. Doyle thinks this is the way we do business in Canada, he's dead wrong," said Forests Minister Pat Bell, who took over the portfolio in a cabinet shuffle last month.
"It is in my view unprofessional, lacking of integrity. He has not done his homework," Bell added.
Before coming to B.C., Doyle worked in the office of the auditor-general of Western Australia.
John Horgan, the New Democratic Party MLA for Malahat-Juan de Fuca, responded to Bell's attack by calling it "classless."
"Rather than listen to the [report's conclusions], which confirm what the public have been saying right from January 2007 - no process, no consultation, no compensation, not in the public interest - ... their response is to be aggressive and yell," he said.
"Classless is what comes to mind."
In his report, Doyle reviewed a decision made in January 2007 by then forests minister Rich Coleman to remove 28,000 hectares of private lands from three coastal tree farm licences.
The lands belong to Western Forest Products, which has since provisionally sold 2,500 hectares on southwestern Vancouver Island to a private developer.
The decision drew the ire of first nations, environmental groups and local land owners.
"The public interest was totally betrayed by the actions of this government," said Vicky Husband, an environmentalist representing opponents to development in the Island community of Jordan River.
"There was absolutely no consultation, not even an effort at compensation, no discussion with the regional governments, no discussion with the local residents who were going to be affected," Husband said as she talked to reporters on the steps of the legislature.
Western Forest Products chief operating officer Duncan Kerr said he was happy with the report, saying it ends speculation the auditor-general was going to attempt to reverse the government's decision.
"We were very confident we had done nothing wrong," he said. "All that has been confirmed."
Doyle's report did not take issue with the government actually removing land from tree farm licences, nor with the minister's right to make such a decision.
Rather, he challenged the government on the process it used to form the basis of the decision.
Doyle said that during his investigation, Coleman told him he had considered only a briefing note when making his decision - a document Doyle described as "inadequate for the job."
"The minister, as the final check on the process and the statutory decision-maker, did not do enough to ensure that due regard was given to the public interest, given the magnitude of the decision," his report said.
Doyle made no specific recommendations, saying that was because there is little private land remaining in tree-farm licences in B.C.
Coleman was not available for comment on Wednesday, though Bell spoke in his defence.
"The decisions made to help support Western Forrest Products through the removal of this land I think were absolutely appropriate and should be supported," he said, proceeding again to attack the auditor-general.
"Mr. Doyle assumes ministers only take into account the specific information that is laid to them in the immediacy of the decision. Clearly that is not correct," Bell said, adding that ministers accumulate a wide variety of information and knowledge as they work within a portfolio.
Bell also took issue with Doyle's inclusion of information that Bell thought to be misleading, such as an allegation of insider trading around the time of the government's decision, and information about donations to the Liberal party.
Doyle said he passed concerns about unusual trading volumes of Western Forest Products stock around the time of the deal onto the B.C. Securities and Exchange Commission for investigation.
The commission has since done a review and determined there was insufficient evidence to proceed with an investigation - a fact not included in Doyle's report.
Doyle pointed out in his report that Western Forest Products donated $60,470 to the BC Liberal Party from 2005 to 2007.
He said Wednesday he did not think that played a role in the government's decision, but he had included the information "for completeness."
Doyle said he thinks his review was neutral and objective, but that he expected and understands the negative reaction.
"To be realistic, I expected there to be some push-back," he said.
"It would be fair to say there should always be tension between those who review what government does and the government itself.
"That has been, and will be, a feature of my role and people in my position forever, I suspect, and across all jurisdictions."
The controversy is over stretches of Vancouver Island land granted to the Esquimalt & Nanaimo Railway in 1884 for building a rail line between Victoria and Courtenay. The land was acquired parcel by parcel by forest companies over the years.
In the 1950s, in exchange for greater access to Crown timber, owners put much of the private land in tree-farm licences, subjecting them to the same logging rules that governed Crown lands.
Over the last decade, the companies have sought to have those lands removed from the licences, relieving them of government logging regulation and opening up increased log exports and sale of some of the land for real estate development.
Coleman approved the deletion of about 28,000 hectares of private lands from Western's tree farm licences in 2007. In all, the Liberal government has removed almost 120,000 hectares from tree farm licences since 2004.
