In 2010, the provincial government appointed Captain Mark Turner to look at the “province’s offshore oil spill prevention and response capabilities.”
He produced the 273 page report and the provincial government dutifully released it along with a lovely news release.
Then-natural resources minister Shawn Skinner committed that the provincial government would “study the report, and consult with the responsible stakeholders to ensure all recommendations are considered.”
Not implemented.
Not acted on.
Not that the government would work tirelessly to make sure that something got done.
And certainly not actually done already.
Nope.
Shawn committed to ensure that everyone thought about Turner’s recommendations a bit.
Skinner didn’t even say he would try and get the “stakeholders” to ponder the recommendations for a specific amount of time, like say an hour.
Definitely no marathon pondering session.
Just an unflinching commitment to all effort short of actually doing anything.
Sheesh.
Not surprisingly, a more recent audit of the offshore spill response found lots of things that needed to happen.
No, his new nickname is not the Baconater
And over in another provincial department, we learned on Tuesday that the provincial government spent almost $150,000 for a report delivered by a failed Tory candidate in the 2011 election.
That wasn’t the bit to get infuriated over, although it was bad enough that Joan Shea and her pals handed a blatant pork contract to a guy who had a distressing tendency to frig up a few things while he was auditor general.
No.
Get pissed that, as the front page Telegram story made pretty clear, Shea and her colleagues hadn’t read the damn report yet even though they’ve had it since before Christmas.
And as for releasing it, Shea would only commit to thinking about it.
-srbp-