Wpg Free Press: Ethicist challenges refusal to release health-care report

As the Winnipeg Free Press reports: 

University of Manitoba ethicist Arthur Schafer is confused by the provincial government’s claim it doesn’t own the health-care sustainability information it paid KPMG $750,000 to gather.

“Why should that information belong to the consulting company? It boggles the mind,” Schafer, director of the Centre for Professional and Applied Ethics, said Thursday. “We pay for it, and it belongs to them? Come on.

“It doesn’t add up, it doesn’t make sense. The government that’s spent three-quarters of a million dollars is obliged by accountability and transparency to make it public, full-stop.”

Schafer challenged the province to prove it can’t reveal the information.

“State the clause in the contract that prohibits you from releasing the entire report,” he said.

Health Minister Kelvin Goertzen refused to do that in a scrum with reporters Thursday.

The consulting firm declined to discuss its insistence it has proprietary ownership of the information in the massive report.