TORONTO - The Ontario government's reliance on consultants amounted to a million-dollar-a-day habit that allowed well-connected outsiders to feast on the taxpayers' dime, the New Democrats charged Tuesday.
Documents obtained by the NDP under freedom of information laws show the Liberal government spent more than $389 million on consulting services in 2007-08, and that doesn't include arms-length agencies, boards and commissions.
"There's a new lottery in Ontario," New Democrat Paul Miller told the legislature. "It's called Consultant Max and it pays out more than $1 million a day, but you've got to be a consultant to play."
Vulnerable kids, unemployed workers and seniors are all told to make due with less during tough economic times while the government continues to reward consultants with huge contracts, said Miller.
"When is this premier going to say enough is enough? When is he finally going to end this government's addiction to consultants and their bloated fees?" he said.
Premier Dalton McGuinty told the legislature the Liberals had reduced spending on consultants by over a third since they were first elected, and noted the previous Conservative government was criticized for spending $662 million on consultants in 2002.
"I don't think it's particularly news that governments and the Ontario government have been availing themselves of the special expertise and services offered by consultants," said McGuinty.
"What I can confirm is that we have reduced the use of consultants by 34 per cent since 2003 when it comes to the amount of money we're investing in consultants."
The documents show exactly how much each of Ontario's 31 ministries paid for consultants in 2007-08, and it turned out the Ministry of Health wasn't the biggest user of outside consultants.
The Ministry of Government Services spent almost $104 million on consultants, $14 million more than the Ministry of Health, which has been under fire for the eHealth Ontario scandal.
That agency and the Health Ministry spent $1 billion over 10 years trying to develop electronic health records, and handed out hundreds of millions of dollars in untendered contracts to consultants.
Government Services Minister Harinder Takhar said the reason his office used the most consultants was because the government has been centralizing most IT, human resource and procurement projects through his ministry over the past few years.
"So it appears Government Services uses a lot of consultants, but it's not really true," Takhar said in an interview.
"Some of the expenses that used to appear in the other ministries now appear in the (Ministry of Government Services).
The Ministry of Finance spent nearly $36 million on consulting services in 2007-08, while the Ministries of Transportation and Correctional Services each spent more than $33 million on consultants.
The Progressive Conservatives, meanwhile, repeated their demand for a public inquiry into the hundreds of millions of dollars in untendered contracts awarded to consultants by eHealth.
"When federal Liberals wasted $100 million on the sponsorship scandal, they called the Gomery inquiry," Opposition Leader Tim Hudak told the legislature.
"The McGuinty Liberals wasted a billion dollars on the eHealth boondoggle. Premier, given that, why aren't you calling a public inquiry?"
McGuinty quoted the auditor general's report into eHealth, which found no evidence of political interference, fraud or criminal wrongdoing, and he flatly rejected the idea of calling a public inquiry.
"No, I won't," the premier responded to Hudak's request.
