Ontario Auditor General Shelley Spence released her first annual report at Queen’s Park Tuesday, taking a fine comb to a range of government actions and programs, from the Ontario Place redevelopment to its approach on handling the opioid crisis. Here are some of the highlights.
Ontario Place redevelopment
The auditor found that the process around the redevelopment of the Ontario Place site was unfair and that the government did not follow established rules and best practices around the redevelopment of the site.
Costs estimates for the project have also ballooned to $2.2 billion, more than five times the initial estimate back in 2019.
Opioids
The auditor found that the decision to prohibit supervised consumption sites within 200 metres of schools or child-care centres was made without proper planning, impact analysis or public consultations.
The decision means that 10 supervised consumption sites will be shuttered by the end of March.
The government has said it will instead focus on Homelessness and Addiction Recovery Treatment (Hart) hubs. However the auditor found that the Ministry of Health has not yet provided an evidence-based case analysis for the HART hubs.
The province has also failed to effectively implement Ontario’s 2016 Opioid Strategy and it does not have “effective processes in place to meet the challenging and changing nature of the opioid crisis in Ontario.”
TDSB
The Toronto District School Board (TDSB), Ontario’s largest school board, was also included in the audit following several years of budget deficits and safety concerns.
The auditor’s report says that a safe learning environment is not always being provided for TDSB students and staff, and that more action is needed by the TDSB to effectively implement its safety strategy.
While the rate of violent incidents at the TDSB is lower than the provincial average, it is at its highest recorded level. Between 2017/18 and the 2022/23 school years, violent incidents at the TDSB increased by 67 per cent, from 244 to 407.
The report also found that TDSB school buildings are in the worst condition of school buildings in Ontario and that financial and capital resources are not consistently allocated the most cost effective or efficient way.
Digitization of government services sluggish
While Ontario has spent around $100 million on major digital initiatives over the past decade, it has not been effective at digitizing government services, the report found.
ServiceOntario does not yet have a digital option for many of its services, including some that are high-demand, such as services related to driver’s licences and health cards. Public adoption of digital services that ServiceOntario does offer has been slow, the report found.
Overall, the approach to digitization of services has been “fragmented,” the auditor found.
The government also lacked proper controls to safeguard Ontarians’ personal data from unauthorized access and critical IT systems which store confidential data lacked strong passwords.
Minister’s Zoning orders
The report found that there were no protocols or apparent rationale for prioritizing some Minister’s Zoning Orders. The ministry did not consistently assess whether an MZO was necessary instead of the regular municipal planning process.
Government ad spending hits new record
Ontario spent $103.5 million on government advertising for the year ending March 31, more than three times the $33.7 million it spent the previous year, the auditor found.
Most of the ads were more partisan than informational, Spence found, with 65 per cent of the money spent on promoting Ontario’s economy.