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NDP plays games with budget report

by Russ Francis

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The long-awaited report from auditor general George Morfitt on the 1995-97 budgets is closer to being released, probably a week from now.

The report, which has been in draft form for months, is in two parts - one on the general budget process, and the other on the events of May, 1996, when the NDP falsely claimed it had balanced the budget for two years in a row.

The more that is known about the budget shambles the better, and to track down the truth, Morfitt and his staff spent a lot of time interviewing staff who were in the finance ministry at the time. Most have since moved on.

But for some strange reason, last Friday the government rejected my information access request asking how much it spent on lawyers representing those finance officials who gave advice to the government on the deficits.

The official grounds cited for the refusal are that the information involves solicitor-client privilege, and that releasing it would be an unreasonable invasion of personal privacy.

The "solicitor-client privilege" ruse is an old one, frequently used by public bodies to prevent disclosure of records which really should see the light of day.

Many a meeting has been held in the presence of an unnecessary lawyer, just so that the agency can cry "solicitor-client privilege".

As for unreasonably invading someone's privacy - that's the last thing I'd want to do.

For Premier Glen Clark, it's probably very unreasonable that someone would ever ask him anything which could embarrass his government.

Fortunately, the information and privacy legislation has protection against this kind of highhandedness.

For instance, under section 22(2)(a) of the act, the public agency must take into account whether or not disclosure is desirable "for the purpose of subjecting the activities of the government of British Columbia or a public body to public scrutiny."

Surely, if there is ever a case for releasing records in order to subject government activities to public scrutiny, this is one.

After all, I'm not asking for a list of videos watched by the staff of the premier's office or what they do in their bedrooms.

This involves a case where, if the Liberals are right, Glen Clark and his advisors knew that neither the 1995-96 nor the 1996-97 budgets would be in the black, but deliberately lied during the May, 1996 election campaign, claiming that both budgets would show a surplus.

Whether it was a trick or a genuine mistake, it succeeded, helping return the New Democrats against what had been overwhelmingly negative public opinion a few months earlier.

(In a memorable phrase, former B.C. Reform official Martyn Brown - now with the B.C. Liberals - said just after the election that the lesson to be learned from the campaign was: "Lying works.")

Immediately after getting the attorney general ministry's letter last Friday, I appealed the refusal, though it could be months before the matter is decided. The auditor general's report - which is arguably the biggest test yet of Morfitt's independence - should make question period during the present sitting of the house a lot more lively.