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03 December 2019

Chaulk and Cheese #nlpoli


If the members of the House of Assembly vote to accept the reports from two statutory officers as presented they will have to accept that Chris Mitchelmore committed an act that does not rise to any reasonable definition of gross mismanagement.   
If they accept that he has committed such an act, then they must accept he did it alone despite evidence that others are at the very least equally culpable. 
Then they must also accept that the punishment for such an offence is far below the standard one ought to expect. 
And in the process, they will endorse reports that are, by any reasonable measure, far below the standards that should come from an office as important as that of the Citizen’s Representative and that of the Commissioner of Legislative Standards.

The conventionally wise were conventionally outraged by two reports released on Monday about how Carla Foote got her job at The Rooms.

None of the reports told us anything of substance about the whole business that we didn’t know before.  Dwight Ball wanted Carla Foote in a new job and Chris Mitchelmore obliged by fixing up a spot at The Rooms.  That did not stop the Chorus from moaning, wailing, and bunching up their tighty whities at this unprecedently extreme, unusual, and hitherto unknown display of corruption unseen in this place before now.

Unknown, that is since the last crowd got punted from office in 2015.  Truth is, by example of politics in Newfoundland and Labrador between 2003 and 2015,  Mitchelmore ought to be ashamed at himself for falling so far short of the standard of corruption represented  by the appointments of cabinet ministers’ bedmates, hacks, and failed candidates to all manner of jobs far more influential than directing advertising for the provincial museum and art gallery.  In those heady days,  the legendary A.B. Morine, looking up from the warmer climes in which he is spending Eternity, could be heard on especially still nights slow-clapping his approval from the old House of Assembly as his heirs on The Hill bested his century-old record time and again.

Yes, Dwight Ball promised to stop this sort of thing, but so too did Danny Williams, gone from office now these nine years this week.  Williams’ parting act was to try and put his future wife onto the offshore board. He failed but not before a few people  - in and out of government - embarrassed themselves in some pretty spectacular ways.  Even Williams’ shag-ups are legendary.

And yes, they both deserved to be pummeled for making promises they knew or ought to have known they would not keep.

But the thing that people should be concerned about in this is more than hypocrisy.  They should read the two reports released on Monday and ask many more questions that are every bit as troubling as the way the Premier and his administration moved the Assistant Secretary to Cabinet to from one part of the public service to a Crown corporation.


We can start with the fact that, as minister, Chris Mitchelmore, had no legal authority to direct the CEO to hire anyone at The Rooms.  The Rooms Corporation Act as it currently exists and under the revised legislation that is not in force gives the power to hire within the corporation solely to the Chief Executive Officer and the Board of Directors.  They are bound to follow the Public Service Commission Act when staffing positions.

Literally everything else that happened with respect to this incident is a result of failures by many individuals from the Clerk of the Executive Council through the deputy minister of Mitchelmore’s department to The Rooms Board and the former CEO himself to act appropriately or to seek appropriate advice about what as, by the former CEO’s admission, a request and subsequent instructions from Mitchelmore that made him uncomfortable from the outset.

The conclusion by both statutory officers that Mitchelmore alone acted improperly is ludicrous on the face of it.  The lengthy discussion in both reports about the nature of the two positions - public service versus executive (order-in-council) is either a sign that both lost sight of the simple facts of the matter or that both embarked on a diversion. What both officers have found, at the very least, is administrative bungling that is extensive and stretches throughout the senior public service.  If the paperwork is improperly completed, then that is not Mitchelmore’s fault. Mitchelmore is a part of that bungling but he alone should not bear responsibility.

This is part of the problem with both reports released on Monday.  Both are inadequate in their execution and reach conclusions that are either not supported by the available evidence or that fly in the face of the evidence.  For example, despite assertions that the Premier was directly involved in this matter, neither of the statutory officers interviewed the Premier or any member of his staff.  Nor did the officers request records from the Premier’s Office with respect to what role he might have played in this matter.  Had either officer been serious about the issue of order-in-council appointments, something which Mitchelmore quite clearly drew a blank on, then the officers would have known these are the purview of the Premier alone by constitutional convention.  No matter how one slices it, they ought to have interviewed Ball.  That they did not is a fatal flaw in their conclusions.

It is evident from the reports that both statutory officers simply do not understand one of the fundamental points in this matter.  The objective pursued by Mitchelmore was to move Foote from a senior executive position in the public service (Assistant Secretary to Cabinet) to a position at the rank of a departmental director.  That is, they proposed to move her three ranks below the job she held to one outside the level appointed by cabinet by statutory authority.

But Mitchelmore could not have acted alone. No one should lose sight of this plain truth in the whole exercise.  Foote held her position solely by a decision of the Premier.  To remove her required his decision as well.  *Any* changes to the senior executive of the public service and Crown corporations are his alone.  That both officers ignored Ball’s role in this situation is reason enough to reject their reports as inadequate on the face of it.

Once one understands that, the rest falls into place as well. The changes to salary and title were undertaken solely to allow Foote to retain her executive position and salary. No one did Foote any favours by demoting her, in effect, to a job three ranks levels below the one she held at the apex of the public service. The raft of commentary about doing her a favour, giving her a salary boost, or sticking an unqualified, political friend into a job for which she is not qualified simply favours simplistic and trite commentary over the substantive point.

This brings us to the finding that Mitchelmore is guilty of gross mismanagement.  The words appear seven times in the combined reports.  The reports note, accurately, that the terms are undefined in legislation. But the Citizens representative makes no effort to look to case law – the usual source for guidance in the absence of statutory definition – for guidance as to what constitutes gross mismanagement.  He might have looked to news media and found a story that audits of the federal integrity commissioner found gross mismanagement, which was based on several incidents that fundamentally undermined the integrity of the office.

He could have looked to the comparable Nova Scotia legislation, that includes this definition:  a deliberate act or an omission showing a reckless or wilful disregard for the efficient management of significant government resources.”

Or he could have looked to his Ontario counterpart.

It is the Commissioner’s view that ‘gross mismanagement in the work of the public service of Ontario’ can manifest itself in two ways: (1) conduct motivated by bad faith or improper purpose, such as personal gain or an abuse of authority; or (2) conduct that, while not motivated by improper motive, constitutes gross mismanagement.

“To assess whether particular conduct, while not motivated by bad faith or improper purpose, is gross mismanagement (category 2), the Commissioner considers a series of non-exhaustive factors
  • The seriousness of the conduct. For instance, mere errors will not constitute gross mismanagement, but an error that is serious and not debatable among reasonable people could.
  • The frequency or systematic nature of the conduct. Patterns of conduct are more likely to constitute gross mismanagement than are isolated incidents.
  • The public interest. Gross mismanagement is more likely to exist if the conduct is something that would shock or concern a reasonable member of the public.  
  • The impact on the organization and/or the program area. Gross mismanagement is more likely to exist if the conduct has significantly affected, or could significantly affect, the organization’s ability to carry out its mandate, the organization’s employees, clients or the public trust.
  • The conduct of the public servant. Gross mismanagement is more likely to exist if the conduct is reckless or wilfully disregards established policies, practices, and procedures."
There is nothing in the information that is readily available in these two reports that rises to this sort of standard.  The Rooms was not impaired in its functioning.  The behaviour was not frequent or systematic, at least on Mitchelmore’s part. Nor was it as egregious as denying someone their human rights.  As minister, he relied on advice, which he either did not receive or which was inadequate.

Other parts of the episode might constitute mismanagement, but it would not be Mitchelmore’s alone. It bears noting, again, that the CR’s failure to address the obvious mismanagement by public servants that he found in his review – such as it is – is baffling.  The allegation may have been made initially against Mitchelmore, but the CR had a duty of care to address any other substantive failings he uncovered in the course of his investigation.  That he failed to do so would arguably constitute gross mismanagement in itself.

That the Commissioner for Legislative Standards has yet again produced a flawed report within his area of responsibility is not a surprise.  That he has not been sacked is.

As it is, the members of the House of Assembly are now faced with a quandary if they are serious about their jobs.

If the members of the House vote to accept the reports as presented they will have to accept that Mitchelmore committed an act that does not rise to any reasonable definition of gross mismanagement.  If they accept that he has committed such an act, then they must accept he did it alone despite evidence that others are at the very least equally culpable. Then they must also accept that the punishment for such an offence is far below the standard one ought to expect. And in the process, they will endorse reports that are, by any reasonable measure, far below the standards that should come from an office as important as that of the Citizen’s Representative and that of the Commissioner of Legislative Standards.

Individual members of the House, particularly Dwight Ball and Chris Mitchelmore, would have to accept findings that are contrary to their stated position.  Mitchelmore says Ball offered Foote the job.  Ball maintains he had nothing to do with the whole business.  Since the Citizens Representative deliberately - and inexcusably - failed to interview Ball on a matter central to the allegations against Mitchelmore, there is no satisfactory answer to a central question of this controversy.

The only sensible resolution to this matter is to reject both reports and start them over again by someone else capable of undertaking such an investigation.  Unfortunately, there is no way to do this without bringing in outsiders specifically to look into the original allegations. A second set of reviews would have to look at both statutory offices and the incumbents to determine if they have also failed to carry out their responsibilities appropriately.

The sad truth is that none of this is likely to happen and those who appear to have participated in this fiasco will stay in place.  Chris Mitchelmore has been thrown under a political bus by his boss repeatedly.  While he may survive in office for the short term, his reputation has been destroyed. 
Were Mitchelmore to quit politics, no one should blame him.  This entire process has been evidence that in provincial politics these days, one is apt to find the truth turned to chalk and cheese made of incompetence and lies.

-srbp-