An Alberta legislature committee is recommending the government appoint an internal candidate as the province’s next auditor general.

The Standing Committee on Legislative Offices put forward Phillip Peters on Wednesday for the watchdog agency’s top post. Peters is currently the general counsel and ethics officer for the Office of the Auditor General. 

The standing committee’s recommendation comes after the province rejected a November offer from current Auditor General Doug Wylie to stay on for two more years so he can complete his health procurement audit.

Marc Froese, a professor of political science at Burman University in Lacombe, spoke to Edmonton AM on Friday to explain the role and its significance.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What does an auditor general do?

The auditor general has a really big job that almost nobody in our province ever thinks about. 

Their job is to audit how the government spends money. They audit the province’s financial statements, they audit the spending of agencies, boards, commissions. They audit the premier’s travel expenses. 

The role is essential to maintaining public trust in government.

The search for a new AG began on Monday. The government standing committee recommended Phillip Peters on Wednesday. How does the selection process work?

This is an independent committee in the legislature, but the majority of seats are held by the UCP. 

A very quick process might be something that allows the auditor general’s office to maintain consistency and smooth functioning. It looks like that’s the kind of person the committee chose.

At the same time, choosing quickly looks like the fix is in because Albertans increasingly don’t trust the UCP, and that’s a big problem for the party. 

It seems like the NDP might have thought that this particular pick was good theoretically, but they’d have preferred to have more time and, possibly, they had another candidate in mind. 

While the six UCP members of the standing committee voted for Peters, the four NDP MLAs voted against recommending him. What does this mean for the role’s independence?

In statutory terms, it doesn’t affect independence at all, but we won’t know until we see how our new auditor general approaches this very big file of the health contracts.

The Auditor General’s office is currently investigating allegations of procurement corruption at Alberta Health Services. How might a new appointee impact the results of this investigation?

They have a job to carry out that investigation. They can choose to approach that investigation differently than the previous auditor general. They can choose to interview different people, compel the release of different records. All that stuff can change. 

Why do you think Phillip Peters was put forward for the role?

You want somebody who has a lot of personal integrity, has a lot of professional integrity and either has formal training in law or finance and accounting, hopefully sort of both.

It appears that, at least on paper, Peters does have those skills. 

It’s so opaque at this point, but I would say Peters was recommended because our government has been so badly mauled in the press, they were hoping to be able to change the channel on the bad news story.

Every time we talked about the auditor general, we brought up how the premier clashed with the auditor general. I think they were hoping for a candidate who would be a little more low profile and who would be completely unimpeachable on the issue of ethics.

When the committee is dominated by the governing party, we understand that the premier probably has some input as to how they vote. When that’s the case, and when the government is distrusted, we worry that the person might not have been the right choice.

Ultimately, who does the auditor general report to?

People like you and me. They report to the legislature and they report publicly on their website.