GREGORY THOMAS, Federal Director
Canadian Taxpayers Federation
MPs broke with tradition recently, voting unanimously in favour of a Liberal motion (271-0) to post detailed transactions from their travel and hospitality expense accounts on the internet. This step is undoubtedly in the right direction, but stops short of being considered “enough.” And the debate in the Commons showed that while the vote was unanimous, party opinions on expenses are far from the same. On the issue of MP expense accountability, the NDP took the most principled stand.
MPs and Senators each control hundreds of thousands of dollars of public funds for salaries, contracts, advertising, hospitality, travel and housing allowances.
In years past, taxpayers were only provided with the yearly total spending by each MP or Senator. More recently, the number was broken down into three categories. Then more categories were added as additional incidents of sketchy spending came to light.
The most egregious example was Gilles Duceppe’s decision, as leader of the Bloc Québécois, to put his party’s executive director on the parliamentary payroll, with that person based exclusively in Montreal.
Duceppe also used the Bloc’s parliamentary budget to pay an author to write a history of the Bloc – the book was published, you can still pick up a used copy. Astonishingly, net proceeds were never forwarded to the taxpayers of Canada.
Sadly, the Liberal motion that passed the Commons did not go far enough.
The Conservatives and Liberals blocked an NDP amendment that would have called on the Auditor General to review MP’s expenses. Peter Julian, an NDP MP from British Columbia, needed unanimous consent to allow the amendment, but the Liberals and Conservatives refused.
Well, there is no provision in the new motion that would compel politicians to show the public the receipts and contracts – the actual documentation – submitted in exchange for the expense money they receive.
In progressive jurisdictions, such as the province of Alberta and the City of Toronto, receipts and contracts submitted by politicians, political staffers, and senior officials are posted online – anyone can inspect the documents with the click of a mouse.
Ontario Premier Kathleen Wynne says she will soon introduce legislation that will meet the same high standard of disclosure.
In order to obtain these receipts and contracts from federal cabinet ministers, you need to file an access to information request, pay a fee, and wade through puddles of red tape, often interacting with access-to-information specialists in the affected government department, and sometimes the federal information commissioner’s office.
The Access to Information Act does not apply to federal MPs and Senators, an outrageous example of politicians placing themselves above the law by writing a loophole for themselves.
Last fall, the Commons committee on procedure held hearings on accountability and disclosure at the behest of the federal NDP caucus.
Conservative and Liberal MPs on the committee agreed in a report that, despite the Senate expense scandal, and contrary to testimony from the Information Commissioner, the Auditor General, and even the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, there’s still no need to apply the Access to Information Act to MPs, no need for the Auditor General to audit MP expenses, and no need to post receipts and contracts online.
NDP members issued a minority report, demanding these sensible reforms. In the Commons, they stuck to this principled position, enduring partisan jabs from both the Conservatives and the Liberals, who seem to prefer the appearance of financial accountability to the reality.
The NDP’s Julian, reflecting on the outcome of the Commons debate, said “all that we moved was that the Auditor General be invited to audit the disclosure. Is there nothing more motherhood and apple pie than that: bring in the Auditor General just for this disclosure?”
Apparently not.
It’s clear Canadians will need to keep the heat on Ottawa politicians of every political stripe to do the right thing.