Ontario Lottery Chief is not Going Quietly – September 18th, 2009
Kelly McDougald, the dismissed CEO of the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation will not be riding quietly into the sunset; on Friday she announced the start of litigation against the province for what she claims was a ‘severe and unjustified’ firing which she is challenging in order to ‘establish the facts and restore my reputation’.
The Ontario provincial government fired McDougald as head of the lottery corporation in late August and released thousands of pages of “unacceptable” expenses filed by OLG executives under her authority at the same time.
The full OLG board resigned the same day, and the provincial auditor general was called in to determine if any rules were broken when executives billed taxpayers for expensive dinners, memberships to Weight Watchers, gyms and golf clubs, and even a $1.12 grocery bag.
“The expense information released by the Ontario government was done without effort by government to either seek or provide context,” McDougald complained in her statement launching the litigation. “While some of these expenses were indeed inappropriate, others were business expenses consistent with the operation of a $6.5 billion revenue-generating corporation, or were part of the employee benefit contract, (while) others were incurred prior to my appointment.”
Ontario finance minister Dwight Duncan said Friday the government was prepared to defend McDougald’s firing in court. “We’ve taken what we believe to be the appropriate steps and we will vigorously, vigorously fight on behalf of taxpayers,” Duncan told reporters. “We will vigorously defend this, and we’ll have more stuff to say about OLG and others as we move forward.”
Toronto newspapers reported that McDougald was hired in 2007 to fix OLG after the corporation was rocked by another scandal about too many insider wins by lottery retailers. McDougald may compare her treatment to that meted out to another CEO fired recently by the province.
Sara Kramer, the former CEO of eHealth Ontario, was paid more than $300 000 to leave her job after the agency handed out $16 million in untendered contracts to consultants. The eHealth scandal, which also saw consultants earning $2 700 a day billing taxpayers extra for minor expenses such as snacks and cups of tea, was considered by many to be a far more serious breach than the expense claims approved at the lottery corporation.
Duncan said he wasn’t surprised by McDougald’s decision to notify the government she intended to sue for wrongful dismissal, and admitted a court case could last years. “I’m not a lawyer, but my understanding is that these things can drag out for a long time,” he said.
