Upon taking office in May 2001, the newly elected provincial Liberals launched a full-scale review of expenditures across government Ministries, none more meanspirited than the review of the Ministry of Human Resources. Tapping into widespread public discontent, the provincial Liberals played to the notion that a goodly number of those in receipt of public assistance funding — particularly those in receipt of ‘disability funding’ — were likely committing fraud, and their review of government spending would root out wrong-doing.
On Tuesday, British Columbia’s auditor-general, Wayne Strelioff, released a report which found that less the one per cent of the Ministry’s 62,000 disabled clients were ineligible for assistance, and following further review only 46 persons — or less than .1% — had their cases closed entirely. Mr. Strelioff’s conclusion: the review provided “no cost-benefit analysis … (and) no serious effort to check the reliability of the assumptions.”
The Vancouver Sun’s Vaughn Palmer offers his analysis of the review fiasco.