Sometimes government run Crown Corporations do things that make us all shake our heads in disgust and the latest gaffe is no exception. Manitoba Public Insurance (MPI) had a painting commissioned by a local artist to commemorate its 30th anniversary and it cost ratepayers $10,000. The now infamous painting shows a young girl and boy looking at a car (1971 Mustang to be exact), probably thinking to themselves that they wish they afford the insurance to pay for it.

After news broke of this flagrant waste of your money, MPI quickly had their number crunchers come up with some sort of justification for the exorbitant expenditure. The best they could come up with was that the total amount only adds up to approximately 1.25 cents per policyholder. Now, some will say that this is certainly not a number to get all bent out of shape about but what those same people tend to forget is that doling out $10K on a painting is only a symptom of a bigger spending illness at MPI. For example, the Winnipeg Sun had learned that MPI was going to spend $200,000 (again, your money) to subsidize bus passes for its staff and it was only after the newspaper exposed this nugget of information that the Crown did an about face and quash that idea.

History has also taught us that MPI has not always exercised the best judgement when it comes to spending money wisely. A couple of years ago the brain trust at MPI decided that it would be a good idea to spend $20 million of motorist's premiums on Manitoba's Universities. Again, it wasn't until after this was exposed that Premier Doer ordered MPI to return the money to ratepayers. It really makes one wonder what other kind of schemes are being hatched at MPI behind closed doors.

MPI's spokesperson in this whole debacle, John Douglas, stated "Do we take responsibility in terms of how we spend money Absolutely we do." It is interesting to note that Douglas chose to use the word 'responsibility' because that is not what most taxpayers would call spending the money they did. The Minister responsible for MPI, Gord Mackintosh, trotted out one of his staffers that claimed the Minister does not get involved with the day to day operations of MPI - fair enough - but surely he would have thought that spending $10K on a painting would raise some eyebrows.

The last time I checked MPI's mandate, it was auto insurance - the Crown Corp. was created to provide effective auto insurance for Manitoba motorists at a fair rate, not buy artwork. Taking insurance money from motorists to pay for something so frivolous is just one more reason why government should get out of the insurance business. More to the point, why does MPI continue to have a monopoly in Manitoba This latest in the never-ending saga of irresponsible spending is the best reason to privatize MPI and open up competition in the auto insurance industry.

The real piece of work here is MPI's ability to get away with this sort of extravagance.