Wake up Olive! Demand an inquiry
Opposition Leader Olive Crane calls for public inquiry, photo from CBC News
By Stephen Pate
NJN News
January 9, 2009
with story from the Guardian
The Guardian reports Olive Crane is calling for public inquiry in to the PNP Immigrant Scam. She made that comment on CBC Compass but in both cases she seems hardly awake.
Is she sick with that flu?
She’s going to let Ghiz slip through her fingers with all that Kings County “I’m-just-a-country-girl” charm.
In the Guardian we get a tepid call to action,
“Mr. Cobb basically confirmed all the areas of concern that Opposition has had for quite a while,” Crane said.“When you have allegations of Billy Dow making decisions on a government program and Brooke MacMillan — we need a public inquiry right away.”
Come on Olive, this is PEI’s biggest political scandal and your chance to be Premier. Wake up and show some energy and emotion. You are no longer a civil servant pushing paper.
Show a little umbrage at the offensiveness of the Ghiz government.
Stand up from behind the desk and show action.
She also said
“The program was a good program for Prince Edward Island, the problems were with the administration.”
Well, that’s great Olive. Cobb didn’t say that. He said it was out of control and where was the benefit.
Are we worried about some Conservative skeletons in the closet?
If we get an inquiry, we’ll have to watch to make sure they don’t limit the scope to Liberal years only.
Opposition leader calls for public inquiry into nominee program
TERESA WRIGHT
The Guardian
Opposition Leader Olive Crane is calling for a public inquiry into the Provincial Nominee Program after a senior government adviser went public Wednesday about his resignation from his post within the controversial PNP.
Gordon Cobb said he believes Innovation Minister Richard Brown and other department insiders mismanaged the program. He decided he could no longer be part of it and left.
Crane says this points to major problems with how the PNP was run and a public inquiry is needed.
“Mr. Cobb basically confirmed all the areas of concern that Opposition has had for quite a while,” Crane said.
“The program was a good program for Prince Edward Island, the problems were with the administration.”
The Provincial Nominee Program (PNP) offered Canadian visas to immigrants who invested $200,000 on P.E.I., some of which went into an Island company.
It was established to encourage more immigration to the province.
But P.E.I.’s program saw immigrants invest in P.E.I. companies by purchasing only preferred shares. The immigrants therefore do not have an active role within these companies.
When federal regulatory changes were announced in March and April of last year, Cobb was asked by Brown to provide advice on how to deal with the changes that would disallow this passive investment approach and therefore end P.E.I.’s PNP.
Cobb advocated a collaborative approach to dealing with Citizenship and Immigration Canada (CIC), as did an independent consultant’s report, done by a firm called Emanote.
Cobb says he was overruled not only by Brown, but also by former deputy minister Brooke MacMillan and Bill Dow, a lawyer for the province.
In a meeting with the group during which the Emanote report was up for debate, Dow — who attended this meeting by speakerphone —seemed to be the final word on the issue, Cobb said.
“All I can say for sure is in that discussion he did essentially reject the Emanote proposal,” Cobb told The Guardian in an interview Wednesday.
“It appeared to be (Dow’s decision). Then he said he was going to do another approach.”
This is why Cobb also advised Brown to remove MacMillan and Dow from the file.
“These were the two people who were responsible for the advice that rejected the Emanote report, and I think that was the wrong advice — therefore I said to Richard (Brown), ‘You’ve got to change that up and those two gentlemen should not be on the file’.”
Crane said she believes all this points to a need for public hearings so Islanders can get to the bottom of what really went on with this program.
“There’s lots of rumours and innuendo with regards to this program, and Mr. Cobb confirmed many of the questions that were out there were accurate,” Crane said.
“When you have allegations of Billy Dow making decisions on a government program and Brooke MacMillan — we need a public inquiry right away.”
But Premier Robert Ghiz says he doesn’t see the need for such an inquiry.
“Right now we have the auditor general, the auditor general is going to come out with a report within the next couple of months and our government is being very open and transparent with him providing all the information,” Ghiz told The Guardian Wednesday.
“Really there’s been no information provided here to me that a public inquiry is needed.”
Ghiz also denied allegations Dow had any decision-making capacities within the PNP.
“Mr. Dow provides legal advice only to the department and we’re very fortunate that we have someone of Mr. Dow’s calibre able to provide legal advice to the department. That’s his only role.”
