Committee wraps up review but e-gaming questions remain

After 10 meetings spent trying to delve into details surrounding the province's failed e-gaming initiative, opposition members of the province's standing committee on public accounts say there are significant questions which have not been answered.

However, with Wednesday's meeting the committee's probe into the affair appears to have concluded. Committee chair James Aylward is promising the committee's report will call on government to bring about changes so the next time Treasury Board and other financial rules are circumvented, "there will be consequences to pay."

• 'Lack of due regard for transparency' in e-gaming file says P.E.I. auditor general
• Some witnesses will no longer be called in e-gaming probe

For most of the earlier meetings, Auditor General Jane MacAdam appeared before the committee to answer questions regarding her e-gaming investigation and report. However, on Wednesday, Finance Minister Allen Roach appeared before the committee.

Never briefed on e-gaming, says Roach

Roach was appointed Minister of Innovation by former premier Robert Ghiz following the October 2011 provincial election. On Wednesday, he told the committee he was never briefed on e-gaming, even though the $950,000 loan provided to the Mi'kmaq Confederacy of PEI to finance the initiative fell under his portfolio. It was approved by his department on Nov. 14, 2011 – less than a month after Roach was sworn into cabinet.

Between 2009 and 2012 the P.E.I. government and the Mi'kmaq Confederacy were involved in a plan to set up a system to license internet gaming sites.

Government spent more than $1.5 million on the initiative. According to the auditor general's timeline of events, government decided to scrap the plan in February 2012, but continued to provide loan money and grants to the Mi'kmaq Confederacy until January 2013.

 "I will answer what I can, but my knowledge of this file is quite frankly limited to what we have all read in the auditor general's report," Roach told the committee as the meeting began.

Roach said he was briefed on "a significant number of files" in preparation for his first sitting of the egislature in the fall of 2011, but e-gaming was not among them.

 "I think it was sometime around 2013, early in the year that I really first became aware that there was a fairly lengthy file," Roach told the committee, with some members openly expressing their shock that he had not been previously made aware of the file.

"How is it possible the minister of innovation wouldn't get a briefing on that?" asked PC MLA Darlene Compton.

"I don't know," was the reply from Roach.

Motion to call more witnesses defeated

Looking for further answers, opposition members of the committee tried once again to pass a motion summoning more witnesses to answer questions, including former premier Robert Ghiz and former finance minister Wes Sheridan. But as with previous attempts, that effort was defeated when the Liberal majority on the committee voted against the motion.

Green leader Peter Bevan-Baker said it's not enough for the committee and taxpayers to know what happened with e-gaming. He said they need to know how decisions were made which led to the province's financial rules being circumvented.

 "We have rules, we have policies in place regarding all of the decisions that were made here … rules and policies that were not followed, and yet there are no consequences for that," he said.

If you worked in the private sector and you broke the financial rules of the company there would be consequences to pay.- PC MLA James Aylward

"I want to know who made those decisions, why those decisions were made, and who needs to be held to account."

Aylward said he would see to it the committee's report to the legislature recommends government outline penalties to be imposed the next time the province's financial rules are circumvented.

"If you worked in the private sector and you broke the financial rules of the company there would be consequences to pay," he said. "We're dealing here with Island taxpayers' dollars, which should be sacred to government."