Verbal briefings defended by health minister

The cabinet minister responsible for Newfoundland and Labrador's $2.6-billion health ministry didn't receive any written information about issues in his department when he was appointed to the position last month, according to documents obtained by CBC News.

The CBC used access to information laws to ask for any briefing documents or notes prepared for Paul Oram after he stepped into the health minister's job in early July.

Awritten response from the department of health said, "There are no documents."

Paul Oram defended that approach, telling CBC News that it's his style of leadership.

"From my perspective, you know, a verbal briefing works really, really well," Oram said. "I feel that I can retain information better that way."

Oram, who was the minister of business before being moved to health and who is a business owner in private life, saidhis approach was to summon senior officials to a boardroom, where he could be briefed by them in person.

"My preferred way of doing things, and I did this in business, is [I] brought everybody in and said 'look, go over the things here that I need to be aware of and talk to me about it and fill me in,'" Oram said, "because again, you know, just to take the time to read every single note I just don't have time to be doing that."

Briefing documents prepared for cabinet ministers became controversial during the Cameron Inquiry into flawed breast cancer tests last year. Former health minister Ross Wiseman admitted to the judicial inquiry that he did not read the sections in his briefing book on botched cancer tests for about four months after his January 2007 appointment.

The notes provided crucial information on what officials then knew about pathology lab problems, which already were the subject of a class action lawsuit, but Wiseman told the inquiry that he was too busy with other issues to read the notes.

The inquiry also heard that the material written for cabinet ministers was sometimes ordered edited before being released to the media.

Oram said verbal briefings aren't an attempt to avoid putting anything in writing.

He said he can't remember if he was supplied with written briefing documents when he took over the business department in 2007.

Provincial NDP Lorraine Michael said she was shocked to learn that Oram had no briefing notes provided to him.

"I have briefing notes on everything ...done by my research people," Michael said. "I would not speak without checking my briefing notes. I cannot believe that he believes that he can remember things to the degree that he does not need briefing notes."