Deb Matthews is normally as straight a shooter as politicians get. But when Ontario's Health Minister took centre stage on Wednesday morning, it was hard not to get the sense one was witnessing some theatre.
Again and again, Ms. Matthews reiterated her shock and horror at the "unacceptable and disappointing" way hospitals have been spending their money. "Leadership means shining the light where it hasn't been shone before," she told reporters. "And it means acting on what you find."
She may indeed have been surprised by some of the revelations in a report by Auditor-General Jim McCarter, who studied 16 hospitals and found habits - including dubious expense claims and untendered contracts - that suggest not enough lessons were learned from last year's eHealth Ontario scandal.
But the issue Ms. Matthews spent most of her time addressing, and the most prominent part of new public-sector accountability legislation she introduced later the same day, was something the senior ranks of government couldn't possibly have been in the dark about.
The hiring of lobbyists by publicly funded agencies, including hospitals, has been going on since Dalton McGuinty's Liberals took office seven years ago, and long before that, as well. Now, under pressure - less from the Auditor-General than from opposition politicians who decided it was a good way to score points against a second-term government - the Liberals have decided they won't stand for it a minute longer.
It's easy to understand the political calculus of their new ban on such hirings with taxpayer dollars, a practice of half the hospitals Mr. McCarter audited. The Liberals are wary of communities being told their hospitals are skimping on services so they can line the pockets of government insiders, so they're trying to blunt that argument before next year's election.
But their faith that they can actually put a stop to public-sector lobbying is only slightly more credible than their surprise that it existed in the first place. Because as long as there's demand for that service, clients will find a way around regulations - something widely believed to have happened in Ottawa since the introduction of the federal Accountability Act. And the government has yet to really explain how it plans to eliminate that demand.
To listen to Ms. Matthews, the people running hospitals don't need to hire lobbyists; they can just pick up the phone and call her. But if it were that simple, they wouldn't be spending large sums on lobbyists in the first place.
What they're paying for isn't just access at the most senior levels. It's help first with tailoring their proposals for expenditures to suit the government's interests, then with navigating through the multiple layers of bureaucracy and political staff where much of the decision making takes place. "On a given day, we may deal with three bureaucrats, someone in the minister's office and someone in the Premier's office," a lobbyist contends.
In a perfect world, government would be simplified so the need for such services wouldn't exist. But while Ms. Matthews is more hands-on than most ministers, neither she nor anyone else can quickly and broadly change that culture.
So if the lobbying isn't up front, the odds are it will go underground. Some organizations will likely blur the line by hiring consultants who aren't registered as lobbyists, but know how to work the channels. And others will get around the ban on "external" lobbyists by putting them on staff, earning six-figure salaries rather than contract fees.
There's a particular irony in that last prospect. In his report, Mr. McCarter devoted much of his attention to a lack of appropriate competition for consulting or lobbying contracts. If those lobbyists wind up permanent employees, it's fair to say there will be even less competition than now.
In a future election season, perhaps, the government of the day will theatrically announce its shock with that development, too.
Adam Radwanski