Journal reporters Darcy Henton and Jason Markusoff
analyzed the membership of 100 Alberta agencies, boards and commissions --
known as Alberta's ABCs -- and discovered a disproportionately large number of
card-carrying, high-profile Tories.
- Today: When it comes to Alberta's boards and
agencies, is there such a thing as too many Tories?
- Monday: Reviewing an appointment process that
allows for too much patronage
- - -
Something unites the 13 appointed board members of
the Peace Country Health Region -- and it's not just a stated commitment to
fiscal responsibility and improving health care in Alberta's northwest.
They're all card-carrying members of the
Progressive Conservative Association of Alberta.
With former Tory cabinet minister Marv Moore at
the helm and another former MLA sitting on that all-PC board, the region stands
out in an Edmonton Journal investigation of high-ranking Tories and government
cronies serving on provincial boards. But scores of others are just as
stacked.
The Conservatives have drawn criticism in the past
over blatant patronage appointments, but The Journal probe, which analyzed the
composition of 100 government agencies, boards and commissions, reveals just
how far the party's influence reaches into the everyday lives of Albertans.
It shows that the province's most influential
boards are loaded with Tories -- constituency executives, former candidates or
key members of the party's powerful provincial executive.
Even the current president of the Tory party,
Margaret Mrazek, chairs a government-appointed board -- the Alberta Fatality
Review Board.
"That's called politics," says Alf Savage, a
former party president who chairs the Auto Insurance Rate Board and serves on
the Municipal Government Board. "In many cases you want the people you know --
and they're the people you know."
Keith Brownsey, who teaches political science at
Calgary's Mount Royal College, is not impressed.
"The party has become the province, and it's a
real slap in the face of democracy. It demonstrates that if people want to be
appointed to these boards they have to become a card-carrying Conservative," he
says. "We hope the government has appointed people of competence, but you have
to question that when some of these boards are so overwhelmingly stacked with
partisan individuals."
Premier Ed Stelmach's cabinet appointed Mrazek to
the three-member Fatality Review Board in April as she was campaigning for the
party presidency, which she won two weeks later.
She bristled when asked if she thought there might
be a conflict of interest in serving on the board while being party
president.
"They're totally different," Mrazek said. "I sit
there as a member of the fatality review committee reviewing cases that are
presented to us, as a lawyer. It has nothing to do with the PC party.
"I'm concerned that that's even being raised. I
find that very offensive."
Moore didn't realize that every single member of
his Peace Country Health Region board was a member of the same political party.
But he says his government affiliation hasn't stopped him from standing up for
the health concerns of northern Albertans.
He just does it respectfully.
"You don't do your health authority any good by
bad-mouthing somebody in government," he says. "I state the facts about funding
and our position, but I certainly don't go out of the way to criticize
individuals. I'm a member of the Progressive Conservative Party, but I would do
the same if it was some other government."
In Peace Country, the revelation of the health
board's make-up is unsettling to some residents, unremarkable to others. After
all, Alberta has been under Tory rule for the last 36 years.
But that doesn't mean they all like it.
Retired Peace River social worker Joan Wahl isn't
critical of the individuals who serve, but she is dismayed they represent only
one political ideology.
"I think the people on these boards have the best
interests of the people they serve at heart," the 68-year-old says.
"The only problem is you don't have people with
differing perspectives. I know I see things very differently from a very
right-wing Conservative."
The Journal compared the "public" board membership
lists against the names of Tory aides, organizers, politicians and candidates.
It also matched those board members against the 60,000 names on PC party lists
for 2002 to September 2006 -- a list that predates last fall's leadership
campaign, when the party swelled with instant members of all political
stripes.
The results?
Of the 100 boards, 44 -- including all nine health
regions, some post-secondary schools and ATB Financial -- were at least half
comprised of PC-connected directors, with 448 of the 983 board positions held
by PC members. Another 15 were held by senior government officials.
That means while PC members made up about three
per cent of Alberta's electorate of approximately two million people, they held
46 per cent -- nearly half -- of the board posts.
The names of current Alberta Liberal executives
did not appear on any of the boards examined by The Journal.
'Threat to democracy'
Earlier this year, Stelmach announced a review of
ABCs -- agencies, boards and commissions. A three-member panel, chaired by
former Energy and Utilities Board chair Neil McCrank, is expected to report in
October.
The premier says he will wait for the report to
decide what changes might be required, but he is not alarmed by the number of
Tory members on key provincial boards.
"If we were to rule out all Conservative
affiliation -- anybody who might have a Progressive Conservative membership --
we would rule out an awful lot of people who have the skill sets to sit on
boards and agencies," Stelmach said in an interview.
The boards include groups tasked to oversee
massive taxpayer-funded budgets -- including some in excess of $2.5 billion --
and set policies that affect thousands of civil servants and dozens of public
programs. They deal with everything from workers' compensation and
liquor-licence inspections to cancer-treatment initiatives and living
allowances for Albertans with developmental disabilities.
Although some positions come with no compensation,
they include generous expense accounts. Some provide remuneration of up to $500
a day for attendance at meetings.
And even without pay, board posts afford members
considerable public influence, and invariably appear on their curriculum
vitae.
The partisan board members, and the politicians
who selected them, argue that appointments are based on merit rather than
favours, and that political involvement shouldn't necessarily exclude qualified
people.
But many people affected by board decisions worry
how much sway these unelected public representatives have.
A spokesman for Friends of Medicare expressed
alarm that the boards of every health region in the province -- boards that at
one time were partially elected -- are so Tory top-heavy.
The group, which opposed the Klein government's
push toward privatized health care, wants Alberta's auditor-general to
investigate the impact patronage appointments may have upon the delivery of
health services.
"We certainly think it should be probed," says
Jack Goldberg, the group's chair. "We've always favoured elected boards and
we've been vehemently opposed to the decision to stop the elections."
Auditor General Fred Dunn noted in his 2004-05
annual report that many boards "deliver significant services to, or protect,
Albertans." But critics say the number of Tories on the public bodies raises
questions about which master they serve: the government or the people.
Bruce Uditsky, CEO of the Alberta Association for
Community Living, said the provincial boards for persons with developmental
disabilities once included families of disabled Albertans, but many are now
heavily dominated by appointed Tories.
"We know these boards are really responsible to
government," he says. "We don't have any illusions that they are somehow really
responsible to the community."
Liberal Leader Kevin Taft calls the depth of
patronage on provincial bodies "a genuine threat to democracy."
"I think this should alarm every citizen in this
province. The government and all of these organizations should not be run as a
private club. These boards, first and foremost, should be made up of the most
qualified people -- not the most politically connected."
Taft says it means that when a Tory-dominated
board makes a poor decision, it is more likely to be covered up than aired
publicly. "I think the public realizes it's time to drain this swamp."
Alliance Leader Paul Hinman says the Tories seem
to abhor dissent on its boards, but says dissent is a necessary ingredient to
good government.
"Dissenters make good organizations better and
they bring down poor organizations quicker," he said.
Occasionally, the ruling Conservatives nominate
retired opposition members for agency work. Former Liberal leader Ken Nicol was
named last year to the board of the $100-million Rural Alberta's Development
Fund, while former NDP head Pam Barrett served briefly on the Alberta
Foundation for the Arts board in 2001.
Barrett said the board, which allocates cultural
grants, never seemed overly sympathetic to the government line when she served
on it -- but she was alarmed to learn that it is now chaired by the 2007 Tory
convention organizer and that six of the 10 members are Tories, including two
past government MLAs.
"It sounds to me like it's become a political
machine, not like an arts support machine," Barrett said.
Selection process slammed
The Journal found that boards with a more
formalized recruiting process have relatively few Tory card holders on them.
Alberta's 10 Child and Family Services Authorities, which regulate day-care
centres and handle foster placements and adoptions, have a rigorous,
months-long board recruitment process.
The Alberta government also has a system in place
that is supposed to ensure a fair process for recruitment to most of its other
boards.
A directive introduced by former premier Ralph
Klein in 1993 called on ministers to set up independent review panels to
interview and vet candidates for each vacancy on dozens of top boards and
prepare a short list for a minister's final decision. The process was tweaked
further last year, at the urging of the auditor general.
But the recruitment directive is still only a
guideline, and it's up to a cabinet minister's discretion whether to follow the
process, says government spokesman Trevor Coloumbe.
As for those short lists drawn up by an ad-hoc
review panel? "The minister can decide to not accept the recommendations and go
his or her own way," Coloumbe says.
The auditor general says that's not good enough.
"We would prefer to see the guidelines as being more than discretionary," Dunn
says. "We'd like to see the guidelines viewed as leading practices that should
be followed."
The process was far less formal last September
when former government services minister George VanderBurg asked his riding PC
association president, Dale Johnson, to consider serving on the board of Credit
Counselling Services of Alberta, an agency that advises Albertans on debt
problems and financial decisions.
Johnson submitted his resume, ministry staff were
suitably impressed with his farming and small-business background and
VanderBurg authorized the appointment through March 2009.
"I asked him to help us out -- it wasn't a very
sought-after board position," says VanderBurg, now a backbench MLA for
Whitecourt-Ste. Anne. The three-year position comes with no compensation,
involves few meetings and drew little interest.
"If he's got the experience and the knowledge to
sit on the board, why should he be excluded?"
NDP leader Brian Mason says there's a reason why
patronage appointments continue in the face of recommendations from the
provincial auditor general to improve practices.
"The Alberta Tory patronage system is designed to
keep the Conservatives in power -- not to provide good services to the people
of Alberta."
Retired Taber-area farmer and Tory party member
Roy Reti, who sits on the Chinook Health Region board, says he's not bound to
follow party lines when it's time to vote on health issues in the region.
If it came down to supporting the government or
supporting the people in his health region, he says his loyalties lie with the
people.
"I have never been one to favour anything the PCs
have done simply because I am a member of the party or because I bought a
membership," he said.
"It never affected the way I would look at an
issue on the board.
"You attend the PC dinners and the PC golf
tournaments so you get heard, so the MLAs know who you are and what you
represent."
Carmen Ewing had no idea that she was the only
director on the 10-member Northern Alberta Development Council that hasn't
bought a Tory membership -- and she's not entirely comfortable with it.
"I would prefer to see a variety of political
stripes sitting around a table because I think you can't all be able to say
yes," said Ewing, mayor of the northwestern Alberta village of Girouxville.
[email protected]
[email protected]
- - -
NO TICKET TO PROSPERITY
Working on an Alberta agency, board or commission
may have its privileges, but it isn't a ticket to prosperity. Some appointments
provide an honorarium while others pay expenses. For health authorities, it's
between $134 and $350 per day for members, based on hours worked, and up to
$492 daily for chairs. On the Peace Country Health board, Moore earned $42,000
in 2005-06, while most others members earned around $15,000, including
additional allowances and benefits. At Capital Health, chair Neil Wilkinson --
an admitted fan of former premier Ralph Klein, under whom he was first selected
-- earned $79,000 for 2005-06, the last year for which figures are
available.
SOURCE: Alberta Government
- - -
A TORY TOP 40
The Journal has examined 100 Alberta agencies,
boards and commissions and compared the names of the people appointed to serve
on the boards to a recent membership list of the Alberta Progressive
Conservative Association.
Here are the top 40 boards with the highest
percentages of card-carrying Conservatives serving on them.
Health boards and regions
- Peace Country Health Region:
13 Tories / 13-member board
- East Central Health:
9 Tories / 12-member board
- Capital Health:
8 Tories / 14-member board
- Calgary Health:
7 Tories / 13-member board
- Aspen Health Region:
11 Tories / 14-member board
- David Thompson Health:
11 Tories / 15-member board
- Chinook Health:
7 Tories / 12-member board
- Northern Lights Health:
7 Tories / 12-member board
- Palliser Health Region:
7 Tories / 13-member board
- Alberta Cancer Board:
5 Tories / 10-member board
- Health Quality Council:
4 Tories / 8-member board
- Public Health Appeal Board:
2 Tories / 4-member board
- Health Facilities Review Board:
8 Tories / 12-member board
Post-secondary Institutions
- Northern Alberta Institute of Technology:
8 Tories / 12-member board
- Portage College:
5 Tories / 7-member board
- Lethbridge College:
4 Tories / 7-member board
- Athabasca University:
6 Tories / 11-member board
- Red Deer College:
3 Tories / 6-member board
- Mount Royal College:
5 Tories / 10-member board
financial
- ATB Financial:
9 Tories / 13-member board
- Credit Union Deposit Guarantee Corp.:
4 Tories / 8-member board
addictions and disabilities
- Premier's Council on the Status of Persons with
Disabilities:
5 Tories / 8-member board
- Alberta Alcohol and Drug Abuse Commission:
7 Tories / 10-member board
- Crystal Meth Task Force:
7 Tories / 12-member board
- Northwest Alberta Persons with Developmental
Disabilities:
6 Tories / 7-member board
Agriculture
- Alberta Grain Commission:
8 Tories / 11-member board
- Agriculture Products Marketing Council:
7 Tories / 11-member board
- Alberta Agriculture Research Institute:
4 Tories / 7-member board
Other
- Seniors Advisory Council:
8 Tories / 10-member board
- Northern Alberta Development Council:
9 Tories / 10-member board
- Worker's Compensation Board:
3 Tories / 4-member board
- Alberta Foundation of the Arts:
6 Tories / 10-member board
- Alberta Gaming and Liquor Commission:
6 Tories / 7-member board
- Alberta Economic Development Authority:
29 Tories / 60-member board
- Alberta Order of Excellence Council:
6 Tories / 6-member board
- Social Care Facilities Review Commission:
7 Tories / 11-member board
- Alberta Science and Research Authority:
9 Tories / 19-member board
- Northeast PDD Board:
5 Tories / 7-member board
- Alberta Fatality Review Board:
3 Tories / 3-member board
- Rural Alberta's Development Fund:
6 Tories / 12-member board
WHO'S TORY NOW?
SEE THE LIST: Find out how many PC party members
sit on the 100 Alberta government agencies, boards and commissions scrutinized
by The Journal. Go to Online Extras at edmontonjournal.com
