"No Way in Hell"

 A parliamentary committee at Queen's Park heard an impassioned mea culpa uttered by George Smitherman, former Ontario health minister, for lack of due diligence and misplaced trust, and true regret - presumably.  "And for the rest of my life I'll regret that", he told reporters over having trusted the founding director of the air ambulance service Ornge, taking him at his word that he had the interests of the public at heart.

How could Mr. Smitherman possibly envision that same man, Dr. Chris Mazza, to have entertained visions of a network of spin-off subsidiaries that he would privatize along with other board members of Ornge, to use public funds as a springboard to personal wealth?  Perish the very unworthy thought.  He simply could not bring himself to imagine that they were people who "would seek to leverage a public benefit for personal gain."

No one, in fact, might have been any the wiser had not the provincial Auditor General highlighted a full range of very peculiar occurrences at Ornge, along with its cleverly designed network of subsidiaries.  Failing the auditor "smell test" is a sure hint that someone was travelling along the road to Perdition.  Who might have imagined it would be the very people Mr. Smitherman trusted?

Not his fault, though.  When he was still minister of health Dr. Mazza was earning the low end of a six-figure salary.  Not on his watch would Dr. Mazza have ended up as he did, with a $1.4-million salary as a public sector worker.  "No way in hell."  Ministry officials should have raised red flags about the presence of a "rogue agency".  And they had not.

"I know people in the ministry had information. When did they actually send the signal that the entity had gone awry?"

The current health Minister, Deb Matthews, is understandably aghast at the entire affair.  Hardly can she credit that Dr. Mazza and his cronies in manipulating the public purse to enrich their own, could have been so dastardly.  Had she been aware, even an iota of what was occurring ... why then, there would have been an immediate response, and a different outcome. 

Understandably, she blames Mr. Smitherman for not having had the presence of thought to have ensured a more robust accountability agreement was in place at the creation of the air ambulance service in 2006. 

On the other hand, Mr. Smitherman discussed with the committee of enquiry how logical it was for the person who was responsible for Ornge's funding to have taken the reigns, since the minister has "a good deal of capacity to bring a wayward agency to heel."

Not her fault.  That an Ornge 'subsidiary' received special "marketing service payments"for helicopters, enriching the board members still further.  Or that Dr. Mazza and his cronies withdrew their names from mandatory sunshine list disclosure documents. 

Yes, oversight is important, but isn't trust even more vital?