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The Citizen, 2019-04-04, Page 5Other Views A broken clock is right twice a day Both sides are right. Both wrong.Shawn Loughlin Shawn’s Sense There’s an annual running joke in The Citizen’s editorial office when it comes time to write up the annual “Sunshine List” and the bad mood it incites in me. The Sunshine List, for those of you who have forgotten, details all the people in Ontario’s public sector who made $100,000 or more in the past calendar year. I have the dubious honour of writing up the list and, every year, I’m amazed at how much money some people make and I wonder where they must spend it all. While the folks around Huron County on the list, the highest of which in modernity just breaks the $300,000 mark, are a little more relatable to me (not by much though, to be honest), those across the province, and especially in the top 10, just puzzle me. When I brought this year’s story to my editor Shawn Loughlin for proofreading, I mentioned that, for comparison’s sake, I added the top three earners in the province, led by, for the second year in a row, Ontario Power Generation President and Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Lyash. Making more than $1.7 million, just $200,000 shy of double the second entry on the list, University of Toronto’s President and Chief Investment Officer Daren Smith who made $989,308, Lyash has become a target for Ontario Premier Doug Ford. It was Lyash’s second year on the list, having made over $1.5 million in 2017, though it bears noting that he was scheduled to leave his position last week after announcing he would step down in February. Shawn pointed out that Ford had put a target on people like Lyash who worked for crown or partially-privatized organizations, and, sure enough, Lyash is leaving to work for Exxon in Chicago. Lyash, alongside former Hydro One Chief Executive Officer Mayo Schmidt, who was dubbed the “six million dollar man” during Ford’s campaign election, due to his $6.2 million annual compensation, are no longer at their jobs, no doubt thanks to efforts of Ford and his provincial government. I’m not, for a second here, saying that I agree with the majority of what the Ford government has done. As a matter of fact, I’d be hard-pressed to point to any initiative besides this one that made sense to me. I’m willing to bet that the majority of readers of The Citizen make closer to what I make on an annual basis than even the higher- tier Sunshine List members for Huron County, let alone Lyash’s astronomical $1.7 million income. It was hard to wrap my head around that much money being in the hands of one person, so I started trying to find a way to frame that money. I did some quick math, when I was writing the Sunshine List story and, if I wanted to make $1.7 million, I’d have to work, without spending a dime, over 40 years at The Citizen, maybe 30 if I apply a “cost of living” update to the calculation. If someone is working minimum wage, they would need to work for 62 years to match Lyash’s income in a single year. If he works a 40-hour work week, in one hour, he makes more than a minimum wage employee makes in an entire week. It’s hard for me to fathom that anyone’s entire work week being worth less than a single hour’s wage for anyone, let alone a company that is literally paid for from every single homeowner or renter’s dollars. So, in the spirit of fairness, I agree with Ford on this issue: that much money in the hands of an individual is a tough pill to swallow. But, like I said, that’s one check in the “good move” list which has easily been trumped by dozens if not hundreds in the “bonehead move” list. The pressure that resulted in these staff changes are also not without their own complications, as the provincial government and Ontario ratepayers were soon to find out. Schmidt’s departure, for example, which no doubt was orchestrated by the government using its powers to replace Hydro One board directors, is going to cost Hydro One $103 million U.S. to kill a takeover bid of Avista Corp, which was blocked by Washington state utilities and transportation commission because of the political pressure resulting in Schmidt’s forced retirement. This is on top of his severance pay, which is reported to have been enough to get him on the Sunshine List five times over. I’m not arguing for communism here (because honestly, when has that ever worked?), but I do think there needs to be some realistic expectations placed on what people in the public sector make. I’ll likely never be on the Sunshine List for being a reporter, and we, my wife and I, somehow keep a roof over our family’s head, the hydro on and the gas and water flowing, and we still having a little bit extra to go for a meal out once in awhile. If we can do that, then does anyone really need to make much more than $100,000? I don’t think so. Especially if their wages are being paid by taxes gathered from people who make one-quarter or one-third of those Sunshine List members. Denny Scott Denny’s Den THE CITIZEN, THURSDAY, APRIL 4, 2019. PAGE 5. Pointing the finger The Liquor Board of Ontario (LCBO) has a problem. Identified by a Toronto Star investigation, the LCBO and its many stores across the province have become a target for theft with a very high success rate. As a provincial entity – at least until Premier Doug Ford sells it to pay for his new van – when something is taken from an LCBO, it’s coming out of the pockets of the taxpayers. The Star report persists in the public eye for all the wrong reasons; with all the wrong people shouldering the blame. Last week, we received a cartoon from Steve Nease, the freelance cartoonist we buy art from every week to go on page four. It depicted a handful of thieves running out the front door of an LCBO store while an employee focuses on the customer in front of him, asking for identification before he can legally sell the woman her alcohol. The implication there, which is in step with how many have reacted to the Star story, is that incompetent and checked-out LCBO employees are sitting back with their feet on a desk while thieves ravage their stores – choosing to follow some laws, but not others. Now, while it may be true that brazen thieves are filling up pockets and backpacks with little fear of the consequences, what, exactly, are LCBO employees supposed to do with no loss prevention infrastructure in place? It’s a worthwhile story, but the headline, “LCBO thefts surge in Toronto, often as employees stand and watch”, fuels the fire. In a scene described by the reporters, two “menacing” thieves fill their backpacks with bottles, warning employees and other shoppers to “stay the f--- away from us” as they loot. They eventually leave, not bothering to run once outside as everyone stands frozen in fear. The report outlines that over 9,000 thefts have been reported at Toronto-area LCBOs in the past four and a half years. That number is now growing in the wake of the Star report. My mother has worked for the LCBO for years. She is 65, not in great shape (sorry, Mom) and has received no formal loss- prevention training. How should she work to prevent this from happening? Approach these people and be attacked? Try to block their exit and get shoved to the ground, or worse? These are retail employees – not trained commandos. When I worked for Rogers, I was robbed at gunpoint. What would have happened had I put up a fight? Should I have taken a bullet? For a store full of DVDs and video games? You can’t even give DVDs away these days. A co-worker ran after a petty thief once. She reminded me of a dog chasing a car – what did she plan on doing if she caught him? She didn’t catch him. Instead, she reaggravated a previously dislocated knee, landing her on the couch for weeks – all for some bags of candy. The LCBO has advised employees not to intervene with thieves, meanwhile Toronto Police are notoriously backed up and slow to respond to low-priority thefts. The story also includes an anonymous letter from an LCBO employee outlining the threats and the danger they face on a daily basis, all under an LCBO umbrella that, according to the letter, “doesn’t care” about theft or its employees. The provincial government and the LCBO are both fair game for scrutiny. They have clearly failed to protect employees and/or put proper loss prevention systems and security in place. What isn’t fair is criticizing frontline employees for not doing enough. Try asking yourself if you’d like to see one of your senior loved ones running after a thief, risking assault, stabbing or worse over some booze. For all the acres of newsprint that have been covered by ink with facts and speculation about the SNC-Lavalin controversy, for all the hours of television air time used up by talking heads giving their opinions, how you feel about the situation probably says more about you than the facts. In reality, both sides of the never-ending debate are right – and both sides are wrong. It depends on how you define the bottom line of whether the government should pursue criminal prosecution of the giant Montreal- based engineering company for alleged bribery and corruption charges to win contracts from the former Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi nearly two decades ago. Kathleen Roussel, Canada’s director of public prosecutions, feels strongly that criminal prosecution is the only way to go. This is despite the fact that an alternative is available through a deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) under which the company can avoid a trial and conviction by paying a large fine and agreeing to a court-supervised program to root out corruption within the company. Former Attorney-General Jody Wilson-Raybould took the side of Roussel. As might be expected, SNC-Lavalin argued the other side of the case. If the company has a criminal conviction it will be ineligible to bid on federal contracts for 10 years, meaning there’d be a shortage of work for many of the nearly 9,000 people on its Canadian payroll. What’s more, the company suggested, since most of its work was outside of Canada, the company might move its headquarters to a more friendly jurisdiction. In the U.S., for instance, 96 per cent of all foreign bribery prosecutions since 1999 have been settled through DPAs. With the fate of nearly 9,000 employees in the balance, not to mention the possible loss of another company headquarters (several multi- national Canadian corporations have abandoned Canada in recent years), other members of the government felt a DPA solution was preferable to criminal prosecution. Over a three-month period late last year, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Finance Minister Bill Morneau, the Clerk of the Privy Council Michael Wernick and Gerald Butts, the Prime Minister’s chief of staff, spoke with Wilson-Raybould, trying to convince her to intervene and use the DPA route. The former attorney-general felt this amounted to undue political interference in the justice system. Given her belief in supporting her director of prosecutions, Winston-Raybould’s refusal to change her mind is admirable. For the government, which must look not just at legal but economic issues (not to mention politics), the DPA solution seems obvious. The Organization for Economic Development notes that 78 per cent of foreign bribery cases since 1999 within its member countries have been resolved through non-trial solutions such as DPAs. Canada didn’t have a DPA alternative until legislation creating one was passed by the Liberal government earlier, probably with a case like the SNC-Lavalin charges in mind. “Undue pressure” is one of those issues that is defined by the person who feels they are being pressured. Those who spoke to Wilson-Raybould no doubt thought they were simply trying to prevent her from making what they felt would be a mistake for the country. The fact that keeps getting overlooked is that despite all the accusations, the criminal prosecution of SNC-Lavalin continues on track, despite the Prime Minister’s wishes. Obviously the “interference” only went so far. While both sides can claim honourable intentions, things get murkier in the aftermath. After she was shuffled to a lesser role in cabinet in January, Wilson-Raybould’s side of the story was leaked to The Globe and Mail, setting the whole controversy in motion. She swears she didn’t authorize anyone to talk. On the other side, someone revealed to the media that Wilson-Raybould had urged the Prime Minister last year to fill a vacancy on the Supreme Court with a candidate he felt wasn’t appropriate. She wants to know who leaked this information (inappropriately) to the media. Allegations that she was a difficult boss to work for have also been circulated. And then there are the scratch-your-head elements. When The Globe and Mail story blew the issue sky-high, Wilson-Raybould quit the cabinet, saying she’d lost confidence in the Prime Minister. Days later she was followed by Jane Philpott, the Treasury Board president, who also said she had no confidence in the PM. Both stayed in the Liberal caucus, yet both have also fed more fuel to the controversy every time it seemed to be dying down. With no absolute right or wrong except the right each of us chooses, this controversy seems ready to go on forever. Keith Roulston From the cluttered desk