Fall 2011 Report Released

Nova Scotia's auditor general says he has been denied access to information about offshore gas operations and has therefore discontinued an audit of the Canada Nova Scotia Offshore Petroleum Board.

In his report released today, Nov. 16, Jacques Lapointe said the board wanted his assurance that any information provided by the operators to the board that is not already public would not be disclosed in his audit report without the operators' approval. Without that assurance, the board, on instruction from ExxonMobil and EnCana, would not release the information to him.

"Had we agreed to those conditions we would, in effect, have signed away our ability to inform the legislature and Nova Scotians about matters they have every right to know," said Mr. Lapointe. "We are always respectful of the sensitivity of information we examine. However, without the unfettered ability to report what we find, we had no tenable alternative but to abandon our audit of the board."

His report says he is unable to assure the legislature or the people of Nova Scotia that the board is properly fulfilling its regulatory responsibilities -- to ensure offshore activities are conducted safely, with due regard for the environment, and protecting the interests of the public.

"We believe the exercise of these responsibilities should be open and transparent. It is not," said Mr. Lapointe.

He said if he did conduct an audit and a dispute later arose over what he intended to report, the courts would be the only recourse for resolution, adding that ExxonMobil's annual earnings are more than three times the entire Nova Scotia provincial budget.

"It would be folly to engage them in a prolonged legal battle."

Other chapters in the report criticize government meat inspection operations for not following their own rules, raise concerns over government's ability to safeguard critical government information systems in a disaster, credit the government for acting on most of the recommendations from the Nunn commission on youth justice, and note that certain programs that protect Nova Scotians in need of care have good processes in place to investigate allegations of abuse in provincially-licenced residential facilities.

Mr. Lapointe said the agriculture department is not adequately managing its duty to audit facilities that process meat or slaughter animals for human consumption.

"That failure increases public health risks associated with meat and meat products. We found that departmental audits of these facilities are not done with regularity or consistency, and there is little enforcement of compliance with regulations and standards when problems are discovered."

The auditor general found that the government's Chief Information Office doesn't have an adequate disaster recovery plan for the nonfinancial information systems it supports.

"In a crisis, important services like income assistance payments could be in jeopardy; critical data such as property and business records could be at risk, and public safety could be compromised should police, jails and courts be unable to access information," he said.

On the other hand, disaster preparedness for the province's major financial systems, managed by the Department of Finance, was found to be good.

He gave government good marks for taking appropriate action to address recommendations of the Nunn Commission of Inquiry. Thirty-one of the 34 recommendations of the commission have been implemented.

"We recommend the government act on the remaining three," Mr. Lapointe said.

His report recommended the Department of Justice address the gap caused by the cancellation of the youth bail supervision program that Justice Merlin Nunn recommended as an intermediate option between pretrial detention and release with conditions for young people facing criminal charges.

Mr. Lapointe said the Departments of Community Services and Health and Wellness should add an appeal process to what is otherwise a generally adequate process of investigating allegations of abuse in provincially licenced residential facilities.

"Persons in care are a vulnerable sector of our society. These individuals deserve every possible protection from abuse. An effective appeal process would strengthen that protection. It is an important component of any complaints-based program."

The full report is available at www.oag-ns.ca.