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McLellan kept mum on gun registry cost: MPs say ex-minister didn't disclose huge budget overrun to Parliament

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A parliamentary committee blamed former Liberal public safety minister Anne McLellan for not informing Parliament about the true cost of the firearms centre and blasted the senior bureaucrats who came up with the accounting scheme to hide those costs. "Evidence suggests that the minister knew, and she did nothing to ensure Parliament was fully informed and for that she must accept responsibility," concluded a majority report by the public accounts committee tabled this week.

The Liberals, however, disagreed in a dissenting report and pointed instead to the bureaucrats who gave Ms. McLellan "flawed" advice and decided to carry $22 million in computer development costs over to the next fiscal year rather than record it like they should have. Bureaucrats testified they briefed Ms. McLellan about the cost overruns and the prospect of asking Parliament for more money, but there was no evidence that she or her office interfered in the decision.

"The former minister's duty was to refrain from interference, to rely on the expert advice of her officials. ... That the advice was flawed is not acceptable grounds for a personal indictment of the minister," said the Liberal report.

The panel launched its investigation last spring to determine who was responsible for the decision, uncovered by Auditor General Sheila Fraser, to keep Parliament in the dark about the rising costs of the Canada Firearms Centre. At the heart of the probe was the accounting treatment of computer development costs, which allowed the centre to dodge recording them in 2003-04 and avoid asking Parliament for more money in supplementary estimates.

All the parties agreed on a package of eight recommendations, many aimed at ensuring bureaucrats make decisions or provide advice based on the rules and policies rather than "political implications" or what they think their ministers want.

The MPs said "it's not the role of public servants to make political decisions" for ministers. They concluded the decision to use an accounting treatment that avoided going to Parliament and avoid a political controversy should have been made by ministers.

Bureaucrats have faced criticism in recent years about being politicized, not in the partisan sense, but by being too accommodating to ministers or too sensitive to the political implications of decisions.

"We like to think we have an apolitical public service, but when things get dicey they circle the wagons around the government of the day and that does not bode well for the public service," said Tory MP John Williams. "Here we had a situation of perhaps the bureaucracy was taking the fall for the minister."

In an unusual move, the report recommended that Treasury Board publicly agree with Ms. Fraser's findings on how the computer development costs should have been handled and issue a clarification so a similar accounting scheme could never happen again. Other recommendations included:

In her report, Ms Fraser said it was difficult to piece together how the decision was made because of scant records and personal notes on key meetings.

She concluded the firearms centre "misinformed" Parliament about the costs racked up to develop a computer system for the registry -- $39 million in 2002-03 and $22 million in 2003-04. She took particular issue with the accounting treatment of the $22 million not recorded in the books as the rules required.

Testimony showed bureaucrats sought two legal opinions. The first concluded the $22 million should be booked that year. A few days later, Margaret Bloodworth, deputy minister at Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness, asked the Justice Department for a legal opinion to clarify confusion about whether the cost incurred was a liability or a debt. The centre relied on that legal opinion and put off booking the $22 million until the next fiscal year.

The decision to delay recording the $22 million came as the Martin government was gearing up for the 2004 election. In fact, then comptroller-general John Wiersema, who opposed the accounting treatment, testified bureaucrats were concerned that going to Parliament could affect the election.

The committee, however, didn't buy the bureaucrats' explanations for seeking a second legal opinion and called their arguments for not asking Parliament for more money in the supplementary estimates "not tenable."

Rather, the committee concluded bureaucrats went out of their way to find a way to avoid the political embarrassment of asking for more money for a project as controversial as the firearms centre.

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REPORT OF THE STANDING COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC ACCOUNTS - OCTOBER 2006

GOVERNMENT DECISIONS LIMITED PARLIAMENT'S CONTROL OF PUBLIC SPENDING OF THE 2006 REPORT OF THE AUDITOR GENERAL OF CANADA http://cmte.parl.gc.ca/Content/HOC/committee/391/pacp/reports/rp2447467/391_PACP_Rpt09_PDF/391_PACP_Rpt09-e.pdf