CKNW Editorial
for March 15, 2000

The fastcat ferries issue should not be permitted to die. The fact that Ms McPhail wouldn't apologize is a matter of importance because this isn't something that was worth a try but didn't quite work out. Experts said from the beginning that this was doomed to fail yet the government not only pressed on, they did everything in their power to discredit their critics including calling their integrity into question.

Bob Ward, whose warnings would have been timely for any government that cared about responsibility and caution was called names .... Instead of meeting his criticisms, which all came true, incidentally, the NDP mounted an ad hominem attack on Mr Ward.

The magnitude of this incredible stupidity is such that Ms McPhail is in a way able to take advantage of the same mood that makes people accept the big lie. This mess was so predictable and so monumental that it literally takes the breath away.

The wrong ships for the runs proposed, no business or market plan and huge overruns and poof! there goes half a billion dollars right before your eyes.

We have, I fear, become so used to big numbers that we scarcely pay attention to the mere matter of half a billion dollars here or there ... but this is an immense sum of money.

I hate to go over old ground but the effort is naturally on by the government to get on with things, to put this behind us. But it cannot be put behind us because it remains with us every day. We have a health care system in crisis and a Children's and Family Ministry that cannot deal with the problems it undertook to handle out of the Gove Report. To say nothing of a badly overtaxed public.

This scandal is the fair indicator - the canary in the mine, if you will - that tells us why we are nearly $35 billion dollars in debt in this province. The entire nine years has been scandalous from the moment then Premier Harcourt declared that the budget would be balanced in the "business cycle" until now that $1.5 billion dollars deficits are all but trumpeted by the Finance Minister as positive events.

The government did indeed face failing markets abroad but so do all governments. The Bill Bennett government had to deal with the worst recession since the thirties yet he brought the province through safe and sound.

The Finance Minister chuckles and the Finance Minister blushes. British Columbians are entitled to more than that. A simple statement of responsibility is not sufficient. No one is in any doubt as to who's responsible. What we need to know is how this could possibly happen and what steps are to be taken to ensure that a similar thing doesn't happen in the future.

The George Morfitt report last Fall was a first class effort from the financial point of view and analysis of the systemic failure. But there are reputations to be cleared here and there are penalties to be paid. Former Premier Clark is evidently unrepentant as he declares that these vessels ought not to be sold. We know from the auditor general what happened and where the system failed but we need also to know how that system failed. For on paper, with the controls of the Ministry of Finance, Treasury Board and cabinet, the controls are there. How in hell did half a billion dollars get spent over a three year period without those controls providing the necessary brakes.

The NDP got their enquiry into the Coquihalla, as well they should have.

They would do well to read their speeches of the day and apply them to the Fastcat ferries. For the NDP of that date asked a very pertinent question - who were the winners in all this and how did they win?

The same question applies to the Fastcat ferries.

Most of all the main questions, yet to be completely answered, are simple - how did this happen, who is to blame, who if anyone profited, and what steps must be taken to ensure that it doesn't happen again.

Only a full, independent inquiry can answer those questions.