Elected officials have a duty to be transparent. They owe it to the people they were elected to serve. But recently, documents have been uncovered that suggest one particular NDP minister, Josie Osborne, has been less than transparent with British Columbians.
Records show that a property belonging to Osborne’s family, listed on her own disclosure forms, was sold last September to a group called MakeWay Charitable Society for $2.3 million.
According to logs of lobbying activity, Osborne was then lobbied by MakeWay on a number of occasions before the society was granted a $15 million stewardship fund from Osborne’s own ministry. Minister Osborne is even quoted in the government news release announcing the fund.
This information raises a number of serious concerns and questions that must be considered, including how British Columbians are able to have confidence that the purchase of the property did not play a role in the award of the $15 million fund. How can we be sure that MakeWay did not leverage its purchase to gain influence with the minister’s office?
All this is made even more troubling by the fact that MakeWay was formerly Tides Canada, an organization known for funding multi-million dollar campaigns against Canadian natural resource projects.
In light of this information, I have taken the time to raise my concerns with the Conflict of Interest Commissioner, calling for an investigation into this matter.
At the very least, people should be provided with answers about how and why these decisions were made. Anything less than full transparency from the minister is simply not good enough.
People need to have confidence that government officials are always making decisions based on what is best for the public, not affected by their own private interests.
As such, it is vital that the minister explains her actions and demonstrates that she is holding herself to the high standard of conduct people rightly expect from their government.
news@wltribune.com
Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter