When the Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) recently pushed provincial politicians to improve disclosure of their expense accounts, we weren’t expecting the reaction we received – full cooperation and immediate progress. Talk about a refreshing response. One can only hope our federal MPs follow suit.
The improvements came after the CTF called on provincial MLAs
back in May to post more details of their expenses on the internet.
At the time, the only way taxpayers could find out how their MLAs were spending their office budgets was to visit their constituency office and ask to see their records (hardly anonymous) or to make the trek down to the legislature and go through large binders in the clerk’s office.
Even then, the information merely showed line-by-line summaries – for example, it might note that an MLA spent $100 on “office supplies” at Staples. However, if you asked to see the bill, the MLA was under no obligation to show it to you.
Thus, he or she could have spent the funds on two giant Hello Kitty staplers or on legitimate expenses such paper, pens and scotch tape.
Data posted online simply reported totals by category; for example, noting that someone spent $1,500 on furniture and equipment.
If these examples sound farfetched, consider that
Nova Scotia MLAs got away with expensing electricity generators for their homes and the Xbox video game “Dance Dance Revolution.”
After the CTF met with staff at the Saskatchewan legislature to discuss the rules for MLA’s expenses, we concluded the guidelines were more rigid than the ones that facilitated the Nova Scotia expense scandal.
However, there was still enough flexibility for some MLAs to spend your tax dollars in a questionable manner. For example, we discovered that an MLA had expensed his university tuition and another spent $945 on a shredder.
Taxpayers living in these MLA’s constituencies may have no problem with those expenses, but they can only decide for themselves if the information is readily available.
That is why we called on the Saskatchewan legislature to follow the
City of Toronto’s lead and move to a model where politicians’ receipts are scanned and place online for taxpayers to view at their convenience. We also called on the legislature to post the line-by-line summaries online in the mean time and to change the law to give taxpayers the right to see the actual receipts.
Thankfully, both parties in the legislature responded favourably to our request and have already placed the line-by-line summaries online. Once the law has been changed to allow taxpayers the right to see receipts for all expenses incurred by MLAs and the legislature assembly, a giant step forward will have been achieved.
The legislature’s quick response to the matter is encouraging when compared with how our MPs in Ottawa responded to requests for greater transparency of their expenses.
As you may recall, parliament’s politician committee that reviewed their own expense-related matters actually had the audacity to refuse the Auditor General’s request to see their expenses. That is why the CTF immediately launched a petition calling for transparency at the federal level.
It’s too bad our federal politicians responded the way they did, they could learn a lot from the way Saskatchewan’s provincial MLA’s handled the situation.
Colin Craig,
Prairie Director
