Ontario’s finance minister has fired the head of the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation and accepted the resignations of the entire board of directors in an attempt to head off another scandal. Dwight Duncan told a news conference at Queen’s Park on Monday that he was “taking action to ensure protection of taxpayers money.” Duncan said there had been problems with expenses and they represented “symptoms of much larger problems” at the OLG. The corporation’s CEO, Kelly McDougald, was fired “for cause,” said the minister. The entire six-member board stepped down.
” Any wonder why people are so cynical towards their government and don’t vote. The sense of entitlement must end.” “ Finance Minister Dwight Duncan.. after HST & OLG I hereby accept your resignation effective immediately!! “ ” Audit the entire government staff… I’m sure we cut some of the bloat out for the better of all of Canada!” “ Sadly, the degree of complacency in the current government borders on complete incompetence. To rush around suddenly sounding the alarm that there has been mismanagement in another crown operation, and then to try to claim that only a good government could catch such behaviours, when it is this same government that has completely missed the issues in the first place, is shocking. McGuinty and most of his team are just not showing much value ” http://www.cbc.ca/canada/toronto/story/2009/08/31/olg-shakeup.html
Ontario cleans house at lottery and gaming corp., firing CEO, replacing board TORONTO – Ontario’s problem-plagued lottery and gaming corporation was overhauled Monday as the province’s finance minister fired its CEO and replaced the entire board of directors. The auditor general was also brought in to review questionable spending at the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp., which included one executive charging taxpayers almost $500 for a nanny. “This is the right (step) to take in terms of the public, and across government we need to make sure that we have rigorous accountability for all Crown agencies, boards and corporations,” said Finance Minister Dwight Duncan. “We have been trying to create change in this place for some time. Frankly, I’m not satisfied with performance to date at OLG.” CEO Kelly McDougald was “dismissed with cause” and, as a result, will not receive severance, Duncan said. The move comes after the government found questionable expense claims filed by executives going back years. It’s the second Ontario government agency to get a major overhaul in the last few months. eHealth Ontario CEO Sarah Kramer and board chairman Dr. Alan Hudson left the troubled agency following shocking spending excesses by consultants and executives. Opposition parties say the government is trying to avoid another political embarrassment in the wake of eHealth and before voters head to the polls in a Sept. 17 byelection. The OLG has been dogged by troubles over the last few years, from questionable insider wins to botched scratch-and-win tickets and malfunctioning slot machines. Duncan’s announcement pre-empts a deadline set by the Ontario ombudsman for the OLG to crack down on insider wins. Ombudsman Andre Marin had given the agency until early September to report back to him about cleaning up its act. Unless the OLG could show him that “rampant fraud” was purged from the system, Marin said he was prepared to press the government to ban all retailers and lottery insiders from playing. He imposed the deadline after a sweeping forensic audit in February revealed lottery insiders in Ontario won prizes totalling $198 million over the past 13 years. At the time, Marin said he was stunned by the “astronomical” sum revealed by the audit and that the OLG still had a problem with dishonest lottery insiders that must be addressed. The agency has been trying to rebuild consumer confidence and enhance security since Marin’s 2007 report accused unscrupulous retailers of collecting tens of millions of dollars in “dishonest” winnings – and the lottery corporation of letting them get away with it. All insider wins have been directly investigated by the police branch of the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario since Jan. 1, 2008, and they have since laid several charges. http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/090831/national/olg_shakeup
and it does not stop there it is clear that Lotto 649 is also too often crooked, the draw results clearly rigged using consecutive numbers and other means to try to build up a larger jackpot where more people tend to buy tickets. This too has to be dealt with now.
“It is a weird feeling when those employed to protect us are in fact found to be a part of the problem. I understand that these people are only a small percentage of the thousands of first class men and women who make up the force however it does shake the foundation of our beliefs. “ ”Wasn’t Julian Fantino AKA Mr Accountability supposed to weed out the crooked cops with this special task force? ” http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2009/08/31/toronto-police-drug-squad-montreal582.html
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