Angry in the Great White North

When Michael Colle resigned as Citizenship and Immigration Minister in Dalton McGuinty's Liberal government in Ontario, the words went out that this was not a slush fund!

It was reckless and scandalous:

The awarding of more than $32-million in grants to more than 100 ethnic and cultural groups in Ontario over the past two years by the Liberal government was conducted through a process that "was not open, transparent or accountable," the provincial Auditor-General concluded yesterday.

"It was one of the worst I have ever seen, with virtually no controls," said Auditor-General Jim McCarter after outlining the findings of his probe into a year-end capital grants program administered by the Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration.

Citizenship Minister Mike Colle resigned after the findings were made public.

But not a slush fund!

Unless the auditor called the fund a "slush fund", the Globe's report could not be more misleading. I hope that Canada's paper of record corrects this error for the morning run.

On a substantive level, I think it is right for Mike Colle to resign as minister. While this program was not a "slush fund", it was clearly mismanaged by the former minister. I suppose McGuinty could have removed him when the details first arose, but I think the man deserved a proper, impartial investigation before losing his job.

Maybe not, but has anyone looked at the distribution of cash?

I did. I checked every organization listed in the auditor-general's report. I found each one's address, then got the postal code and determined who the MPP was.

Only two organizations were dropped from my list because I could not determine their location.

And this is what I found.

I checked $31,892,329 in disbursed funds going to 110 discreet grants.

Of these, 76% of the grants and 85% of the cash went to ridings represented by the Dalton McGuinty's Liberals.

Another 16% of the grants, representing 2% of the cash, went to ridings represented by NDP members.

Then 6% of the grants, representing 13% of the cash, went to ridings who elected MPPs from the Progressive Conservatives.

One grant, less than 1% of the total value, went to a riding represented by an independent.

[Note that one grant for $3,000,000 went to the Brooklin Community Centre in a PC riding. If you took that one grant out, the PC share of the Michael Colle grant pie plummets to 4%.]

For comparison, consider that at Queen's Park, the Liberals have 70% of the seats, the PC 23% of the seats, and the NDP 7%.

It might not be a slush fund, but you would do well to be a Liberal MPP when Michael Colle decided to start giving out the year-end cash.

Now before someone else says it, it must be noted that immigrants are most likely to settle in Toronto, which is represented mostly by Liberals. So maybe there ought to be some skewing.

But even then, just counting the ridings in the Golden Horseshoe, Liberals have 77% of the ridings, the Progressive Conservatives have 13%, and the NDP 10%. The grant distribution better matches the riding distribution, but not by much. The Liberals still got a lot of money compared to the desperately short-changed NDP. The Progressive Conservatives seemed to get the expected amount, but as I mentioned, there is one grant that is far and beyond to largest and is definitely an outlier. Still, it counts.

Nevertheless, even if you'd expect Citizen and Immigration grants to help Liberal ridings, that expectation raises an interesting question. The ministry that logically would distribute money to ridings most likely to be Liberal was the one that got caught tossing out money like it was going out of style. Anyone wonder if a ministry that tends to provide grants in PC ridings is run like Fort Knox, with the money coming out in dribs and drabs?

Just wondering.

Maybe it wasn't run as a slush fund, but Liberal MPPs sure seemed to benefit the most from the government largesse from the Citizenship and Immigration.

[Disclosure: Michael Colle was a teacher at St Michael's College School at the same time I was a student there. Though I remember him, I never had him as a teacher, nor do I expect that he remembers who I am. I doubt I said five words to the man in those five years. Our paths never crossed since.]