The New Brunswick Progressive Conservatives want the premier’s chief of staff and Service New Brunswick officials to answer questions before the legislature’s Crown corporation committee.
“We have as the auditor general pointed out conflicting reports, conflicting information from the chief of staff and former CEO, and she actually indicated those were conflicting statements,” says New Brunswick Opposition Leader Blaine Higgs.
New Brunswick Attorney General Serge Rouselle says the auditor general’s report was full and complete, and is calling the latest Tory bill “a political game.”
“They want to make do their own inquest to make their own answers,” Rouselle says.“The Opposition is not happy with the report so now they're putting into question her work. She had the power to subpoena people and have them under oath, she said she had full co-operation.”
Green Party Leader David Coon says there’s plenty more to uncover.
“I will absolutely be supporting the Tories’ motion. We need to have key players involved in the affair before Crown corporations,” Coon says.
Opposition parties say the auditor general was only able to go so far.
“She was doing a performance audit as an auditor general and not an inquiry,” Coon says. “The kind of inquiry, the kinds of questions of the legislative assembly that needs to be asked are not all on her bailiwick.”
“That's our job: to bring that to the forefront and recognize that we can do better, and that's the goal here,” says Higgs.
Twenty per cent of the 18,000 appeals that have been filed are still outstanding. They should be completed by early next year.
With files from CTV Atlantic’s Nick Moore.
