B.C. Liberal leader calls for audit of B.C. Housing

The leader of the B.C.’s official opposition is calling for an independent audit into B.C. Housing.

“[We] are calling for a full, independent transparent audit [of B.C. Housing],” B.C. Liberal leader Kevin Falcon said during a press conference Tuesday, Nov. 22.

Falcon stated the Crown corporation had been “mismanaged” under the watch of former Housing Minister and current Premier David Eby.

“[Eby] was the one that, on a Canada Day long weekend, quietly released the report from Ernst and Young. Then, the next weekend, again the following weekend, on a Friday night, he fires the entire board of B.C. Housing. This is a board the NDP appointed by the way, and of course, they should have been fired for their total incompetence,” Falcon claimed.

“We now find out that at B.C. Housing, there has been total mismanagement, chaos. We’ve got contracts being awarded, there’s conflicts, without any discernible criteria. You’ve got all sorts of disorganization and chaos. You’ve got almost 20 executives, almost 20 senior executives, have left the organization just within the two years that David Eby was the Minister of Housing responsible.”

The 85 page report from Ernst and Young outlined 26 findings and 44 recommendations, all of which were based on the key themes of governance, strategic planning and business integration, people, program design, and project administration processes.

Falcon also claimed the Atira Women’s Resource Society, a social housing provided which worked with the province, buried a report from BDO [accounting firm] that was recently released to the B.C. Liberals from whistle blowers.

“Having been in government, having been a finance minister, I can read this in a different way than most people can,” stated Falcon.

“This is a report that you can tell they were trying as hard as they could not to make it sound as bad as it really is. Accountants get lots of push back from the ministry to say ‘can you please put that in nicer terms?’ But there’s no taking away from what the results of that audit are: this was an organization out of control.”

Falcon did not provide any specifics about the report, and only provided limited details about text messages he supposedly had in his possession that involves Atira.

“The bottom line is this, there are a series of texts going back and forth between the former CEO and senior executives of the organization that indicate very clearly that there is direction being given to provide money to an organization in total contradiction to the recommendations of the BDO were, to provide them to Atira Housing in spite of the very clear inability of that organization to manage those dollars,” Falcon said.

Falcon added “what I care about most is results,” stating the spending of tax dollars on an issue, be it housing, crime or health care, is valid so long as results are delivered.

“At the end of the day, our responsibility in government — and I’m not in government — but when I was in government, was to make sure we are getting results for the public, and where we’re not getting results, we have to acknowledge we’re not getting them, and then fix it and get on with getting them,” Falcon said.

“[The B.C. NDP] have that obligation too, and David Eby has been the minister responsible for housing under this NDP government for years and it’s his responsibility, given that a lot of this chaos happened under his watch, to make sure that the public has confidence in a system that, right now, they have no reason to feel confident about.”

Vernon Matters has reached out to the B.C. government for a response to Falcon’s comments.