Recent scandals involving expense claims by Senators Mike Duffy, Pamela Wallin, Patrick Brazeau, and Mac Harb could just be the tip of the iceberg.
We just don’t know, because federal politicians, including Senators and MPs, wrote the Access to Information Act so it doesn’t apply to themselves. And the Auditor General of Canada needs the permission of Senators and MPs to conduct an audit on Parliament Hill.
In May 2010 federal MPs blocked Auditor General Sheila Fraser’s request to examine how more than half-a-billion tax dollars are spent running Parliament each year. The last time an audit was conducted was nearly 20 years ago and taxpayers weren’t putting up with the lame-o-excuses politicians were dreaming up to avoid the scrutiny attached to almost every other dollar of federal government spending.
The CTF organized a petition and had taxpayers contact Parliament Hill en mass demanding the books be opened and MP expenses be posted online for all to see. On June 15, 2010 parliamentarians finally relented.
More incremental gains came in October 2010 when release of the Public Accounts broke out the spending of Members of Parliament into various categories. And, the Senate finally relented and they too agreed to open their books to the auditor.
Fast forward to 2013, and the Senate was up to its old tricks again, altering an audit report into Senator Mike Duffy’s improper expense claims.
The CTF will not rest until all federal lawmakers are subject to posting their expense receipts online for the public to see not unlike the Province of Alberta or the City of Toronto which are currently the gold-stand of transparency and accountability when it comes to disclosure of politicians’ expenses.
If the Senate and the House of Commons had come clean with taxpayers and the Auditor General back in 2010, instead of playing games, the latest Senate expense scandals could have been nipped in the bud. Instead, taxpayers are on the hook for hundreds of thousands of dollars, and some Senators are refusing to pay the money back.
Canadian Taxpayers Federation
