本文发表在 rolia.net 枫下论坛The head of embattled Stewardship Ontario is a well-connected Liberal who has retained a former eHealth consultant to do damage control for the recycling agency in charge of new “eco fees” on thousands of household products, the Star has learned.

Gemma Zecchini, once a staffer in former premier David Peterson’s government and a donor to the Liberal party, turned for help to Hugh MacPhie, a Conservative communications expert best known as an author of former eHealth Ontario boss Sarah Kramer’s notorious $25,000 speech.

That revelation comes as Ontario Ombudsman André Marin has, at the urging of NDP Leader Andrea Horwath and complaints from the public, said he will look into whether a full investigation is warranted into the design and implementation of the controversial fees.

The fees hit consumers with extra costs of up to $6.66 on a wide range of potentially toxic household items from fertilizer to light bulbs and cleaners. They came into effect July 1 with little advance notice to the public and caught shoppers by surprise.

It’s the third time in a year that Premier Dalton McGuinty’s Liberal government has been rocked by problems at an arm’s-length agency. The others were eHealth and the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation, where spending irregularities raised eyebrows.

“With the notion of well-connected Liberal friends and a government running for cover, all you need is the expensive consultants and you’ve got eHealth all over again with taxpayers footing the bill,” said Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak.

“The whole thing has become a train wreck.”

Both eHealth and OLG lost their chief executives amid furor. Kramer quit after revelations of untendered contracts and high-flying spending at eHealth, where some consultants paid $3,000 a day expensed tea and cookies to taxpayers, while OLG chief Kelly McDougald was fired amid concerns about employee expenses. She later won a wrongful dismissal settlement.

Opposition parties and critics have complained the implementation of the new round of eco fees has been botched, with some stores overcharging customers because of confusion over details or errors in programming cash registers.

Many stores are waiting to sort everything out before charging the fees, intended to bankroll recycling efforts to keep harmful wastes out of garbage dumps and waterways.

The controversy has been fuelled by silence from Stewardship Ontario, an independent, non-profit agency run by industry representatives but regulated by the government. The agency is self-funding from fees charged to manufacturers and consumers and is not subject to government Freedom of Information legislation. Executive salaries are not on Ontario’s “sunshine list” of public sector workers earning over $100,000 a year.

Officials declined to say how much Zecchini and her executive team earns, how much is being paid to MacPhie in his current role and how much has been spent on consultants as the agency — which posted a $1.9 million surplus last year — runs Ontario’s recycling programs with money from consumers, industries and sales of recyclables like paper and cardboard.

“That’s private,” said communications director Amanda Harper-Sevonty. The agency promised a statement on the issues facing it on Wednesday but nothing has been released.

Stewardship Ontario has been “ducking and hiding” all week as the controversy grows, said Hudak, who dubs the agency “secretive and unaccountable.”

Even a Liberal government can’t seem to get answers from the agency headed by Zecchini, who worked in the Liberal caucus office in the late 1980s with people including current McGuinty campaign director Don Guy — a key adviser to the premier — current Peterborough MPP Jeff Leal, the chief government whip, and former Liberal MP Paddy Torsney.

Toward the end of the Peterson government in 1990, Zecchini became a press aide to attorney general Ian Scott. She was hired to run Stewardship Ontario last year in the ramp-up to the new fees.

“There is certainly a sense of frustration, obviously, on the part of the ministry and the minister as to how Stewardship Ontario has introduced the concept,” said Liberal MPP Helena Jaczek, parliamentary assistant to Environment Minister John Gerretsen, who, like McGuinty, is on vacation.

“We definitely would like to hear from Stewardship Ontario. I’m not aware of any contact.”

MacPhie declined to comment on his assistance to Zecchini and the troubled agency, to which Gerretsen wrote a scathing letter on Tuesday demanding problems with stores overcharging customers on eco fees must be fixed promptly.

“MacPhie and Company does work for Stewardship Ontario,” MacPhie confirmed in an email. “It is not our practice to comment publicly on our client engagements.”更多精彩文章及讨论，请光临枫下论坛 rolia.net