Last summer, the Public Service Commission (PSC) held a competition for the position of chief executive officer of the public utilities board.
They also held a competition apparently for the vacant commissioner positions at the same time.
Bond Papers e-mailed the PSC on Friday and asked for confirmation the competitions had been held, and whether they had been completed or cancelled.
The reply confirmed that a competition was held for "CEO, Public Utilities Board" and that "the resumes of the candidates who applied for the opportunity were assessed" by one of the PSC commissioners and a representative of the Clerk of the Executive Council.
That's it.
A second e-mail asked - for the third time, all told - if the competition was actually completed.
You see, saying that someone assessed the resumes doesn't say anything at all. That would be one step in a full selection process that included interviews, some kind of written test and then a final set of recommendations. Then again, if the resumes were deemed lacking qualification after they were assessed, the whole process might have come to a screeching halt.
The second e-mail has gone unanswered. The one from last Friday likewise has gone unanswered.
This aspect of the current public utilities board controversy is really quite interesting.
Recall that in the offshore board matter, the provincial government twice agreed to a process to select a person for the chair/chief executive job based on merit criteria. Andy Wells wasn't even in the first competition. That was halted when the Premier injected Wells into the whole thing.
In the second go-round, based on a statutory process, Wells didn't get the job then either.
Now this whole Public Service Commission angle pops up and the whole thing takes on another aspect.
First, the vagueness - let alone incompleteness - of the PSC reply is suggestive there is more to the story.
Second, there have been no appointments made since the competition to fill two vacant commissioner jobs at the board.
Third, the news release announcing Andy Wells would collect a second big salary for a second big job contained not a single reference to Wells having been selected by a competitive hiring process based on merit. you see, while senior appointments don't normally refer to the selection process, in this case the successful conclusion of a process would be a really good thing. These sorts of appointments haven't been handled that way and establishing competition based on merit goes a long way to giving cabinet appointments more credibility than they have.
Of course, the news release omitted a description of the public utilities boards full set of statutory responsibilities - like municipal water and sewer rates - so maybe there's nothing to it. That's like saying there was a competition for CEO of the PUB when the position was merged with that of board chair in 2006.
Then again, given that the whole appointment looks suspiciously familiar, maybe there was a failed or interrupted public service competition in this case as well.