Back in the early 1980s when Vancouver's world exposition, Expo '86, was still in the planning stage, it was found the-then president of the Exposition was spending rather lavishly. If memory serves, the president was turfed by then Premier Bill Bennett and in came businessman Jimmy Pattison. Pattison, who knew a thing or two about running a company, promptly hung signs within Exposition offices that read: "We Want To Be Known As Expo '86 - Not Expo $¢." From there on in, stories about Exposition excess were non-existent.

The offices of Forest Renewal British Columbia (FRBC) should be similarly decorated. The latest report from BC Auditor General George Morfitt found that FRBC started spending money before ever coming up with a strategic plan on how and where to spend the money properly.

Imagine if anyone else attempted to start up a $400 million a year company and had to go about it the normal way by applying for a bank loan. If the applicants proposed vacuous founding "principles" instead of a well-thought out strategic business plan, bankers would have put such requests in the trash. Not at FRBC though. When taxpayer money is involved, it seems hard questions were not asked by political flacks, compliant captains of industry, or the politicians who started the FRBC ball rolling and ensured its wasteful ways.

So for example, FRBC spent $395 million in 1996-97 for (its estimate) of almost 5,000 jobs, while its original aim was to spend $275 million for 6,100 jobs. The AG notes that in one of FRBC's (late) reports, the company actually bragged that this was a sign of a successful dynamic corporation. Tell it Tom Peters.

The report notes that the higher stumpage rates, which accompanied the creation of FRBC, were justified under the pretense that the extra cash would go to programs and projects not otherwise funded. Thus, creating new jobs in forest-related activity was to be the goal - not shifting around existing government of business investment.

The AG concludes that for the most part that didn't happen. As a result the new taxes, (i.e., the higher stumpage rates) merely ended up displacing existing government funding. Case in point: While the Ministry of Forests spent $187 million on silviculture back in 1994, it spent only $38 million by this past budget year. Forest Renewal BC took up the slack, which now spends $140 million annually on that line item.

The trick there is that the government off-loaded ministry responsibilities, thus enabling it to claim spending was down in that department, though the higher stumpage taxes were being used to do what government used to do anyway. Put another way, stumpage rates rose so that government could off-load responsibilities onto FRBC, which left it (government) free to spend existing tax revenues somewhere else - say on fast ferries. Unfortunately, since FRBC never had it clear in its collective head where and how to spend the money properly, it also spent money like a drunken sailor, though that may be an unfair comparison - drunken sailors only spend their own cash or that of their mates.

Forest Renewal BC now claims that much of what the AG has reported is old news and is now being dealt with. Time will tell. But back in the good old days, presidents and boards used to get sacked for this kind of mismanagement along with the politicians who appointed them. Someone call Jim Pattison and ask him if he'd consider another stint of public service.