NLIS 5
February 4, 2005
(Office of the Citizens� Representative)
 

Fraser March, the Citizens� Representative for the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, has forwarded the attached letter to the Speaker of the House of Assembly, Harvey Hodder.

In the attached letter, the Citizens� Representative deals with the accusation of excessive travel made by the Auditor General recently.

Through the Speaker, the Citizens� Representative is asking the House of Assembly whether or not the mandate to provide a province-wide service given in the year 2002 is still in place.

The Citizens� Representative makes two requests of the House of Assembly. The first, asks the House of Assembly to review the mandate given to the Citizens� Representative in the year 2002 and to respond accordingly. Second, the Citizens� Representative requests the House of Assembly to invite a person of expertise to review the operations of the Office of the Citizens� Representative with a view to improving this citizens� service and to provide an overall evaluation of the office�s development.

The Citizens� Representative suggests that either the recently retired Ombudsman of Manitoba or the retiring Ombudsman of Ontario are two such qualified people.

The Citizens� Representative requests that the House of Assembly deal with this matter as quickly as possible because recent public statements by the Speaker and the Auditor General have frozen the development of the Office of the Citizens� Representative.

The following is a copy of the letter sent to the Speaker of the House of Assembly:

February 4, 2005

Honorable Harvey Hodder
Speaker
House of Assembly
P. O. Box 8700
St. John�s, NL

Dear Mr. Hodder:

Further to the Report of the Auditor General who accuses the Citizens� Representative, among other accusations, of excessive private vehicle usage implying unnecessary travel, you have made one statement to the media and are reported to have made further statements to the media that there is concern over the excessive travel of the Citizens� Representative as he performs his duties in accordance with the Citizens� Representative Act.

When the incumbent Citizens� Representative was confirmed by the House of Assembly on December 13, 2001, the House of Assembly was clear that an ombuds service of high quality was to be offered to the citizens of Newfoundland and Labrador wherever they lived in our province. All members of the Legislature, including yourself, indicated to the Citizens� Representative that he was free to travel within our province unimpeded by bureaucracy as the challenge of establishing an ombuds service was met. Further, the Citizens� Representative was given authority to direct staff to travel as the service required. It was clearly understood by everyone that to provide an ombuds service to the southern Avalon, outside the Avalon Peninsula and in Labrador would require extensive travel. This freedom of travel was substantiated in subsequent meetings of the Commission of Internal Economy and had three restrictions. First, travel had to be within the budgetary restrictions approved by the House of Assembly. Second, the travel of the Citizens� Representative would be reimbursed in accordance with regulations found in the Executive Compensation Plan. Third, the travel of the staff of the Citizens� Representative would be reimbursed in accordance with General Service travel regulations.

Showing its commitment to this province-wide citizen-grievance process, the House of Assembly provided the Citizens� Representative with a transportation/travel budget of $60,000 for the fiscal year 2002/2003, a transportation/travel budget of $60,000 for the fiscal year 2003/2004, and a transportation/travel budget of $60,000 for the fiscal year 2004/2005. The Citizens� Representative has performed his duties as required by legislation on a province-wide basis without spending all the funds made available to him for transportation in each of the fiscal years 2002/2003 and 2003/2004.


The Citizens� Representative came in under budget in each of these fiscal years. Budgetary review indicates that the Citizens� Representative will spend less for transportation in the fiscal year 2004/2005 then has been allocated by the House of Assembly.

For the past three years, the Citizens� Representative has followed these directions of the House of Assembly to the letter and has never received any comment whatsoever, negative or positive, with the exception of criticism from MHAs who felt the Citizens� Representative should spend more time in their constituency and criticism from individual citizens who weren�t visited as quickly or often as was necessity. In other words, the Citizens� Representative was criticized for not traveling more.

In performing his duties in accordance with the Citizens� Representative Act and in attempts to meet the mandate given by the House of Assembly, the Citizens� Representative traveled 125,454 kilometress during the period from February 1, 2002 until June 30, 2004. All travel was related to official work of the Citizens� Representative, was absolutely required and followed the regulations of the Executive Compensation Plan and regulations instituted under Section 45 of the Citizens� Representative Act.

Now the public is being told by the Auditor General that the travel of the Citizens� Representative is "excessive" and the Speaker of the House of Assembly has concerns about the excessive travel of the Citizens� Representative.

This turn of events has frozen the development of an ombuds service for the citizens of Newfoundland and Labrador. The Citizens� Representative has forty-two immediate cases that require substantial travel if investigations and reporting are to be performed in accordance with the Citizens� Representative Act. There are a number of community intake programs and school visitations planned for this year that will require considerable highway transportation. Given the present public discussion, the Citizens� Representative doesn�t know if it is the wish of the House of Assembly to continue past practice or if some different process is required by his political masters.

Because of the detrimental impact these public statements are having on the ability of the Citizens� Representative to investigate citizens� complaints in accordance with the Citizens� Representative Act the House of Assembly is requested to seriously consider the following in as expeditious a manner as possible.

First, the House of Assembly is asked to revisit the whole question of how our ombuds service is to be administered in areas of our province outside of the northeast Avalon. This re-visitation is asked to remember that, absent a system of regional offices such as exists in other Canadian jurisdictions, providing an equal service in quantity and quality to the regions outside the northeast Avalon will require considerable highway transportation. The fundamental question for the House of Assembly is whether or not it is their wish to continue the system of citizen servicing that they initiated three years ago or do they wish to have a new system of citizen grievance handling developed?


Second, the Citizens� Representative requests that the House of Assembly invite a person with expertise in the ombuds field to review the operations of the Citizens� Representative in Newfoundland and Labrador with a view to improving this citizen service and to provide an overall evaluation of this system�s development during the last three years. Such an objective review could be of benefit for the House of Assembly, the citizens of our province, and the Citizens� Representative.

If this request finds favour then the person invited to perform said evaluation should have impeccable qualifications and history and could be utilized to deal with other issues facing our ombuds service. Two who fit this task are the retiring ombudsmen of Manitoba and Ontario.

The House of Assembly is asked to deal with this matter as quickly as possible in the interest of our developing ombuds service.

Sincerely

Fraser March
Citizens� Representative

CC. Commission of Internal Economy
Members of the House of Assembly

2005 02 04                      4:25 p.m.