It's a win-win for Auditor-General Sheila Fraser and Canadian Taxpayers

Finally, the very secretive Board of Internal Economy relented today and agreed to allow Sheila Fraser, Canada's Auditor-General, to have a wee peak at their books. Here is the press release from the Board stating their new position on the audit. It is important to note that today's agreement does not include the Senate; Ms. Fraser will be making a formal request to examine their books soon, let's hope they do the right thing without having to be pushed.

For those of you that aren't aware, the Board is "...the governing body of the House of Commons...." which has the legal authority to administer the House, its budget and expenditures and salary scales for non-unionized employees of the House. Basically, in a nutshell, they control the books of the House of Commons.

Back in May, the Board basically told Ms. Fraser to "go fly a kite" when she suggested that she'd like to audit Parliamentary expenditures. Here's what the Board said back on May 13th, 2010:

"Following careful consideration, the Auditor General will not be invited to conduct a performance audit of the House of Commons. According to the Auditor General’s Act, the proposed audit would go beyond the scope of the Auditor General’s mandate, which allows her to audit government departments and various Crown agencies as identified in the Act, but does not include the legislative branch, which includes the House of Commons and its Administration."

That sounded like a firm no to me. Unfortunately, Canadian taxpayers felt otherwise; fully 85% of Canadians polled stated that they were concerned about their MPs' refusal to let Ms. Fraser audit their books despite the Board's reassurances that their books were audited.

Today's (June 15th, 2010) press release took a different tone, likely reflecting (for a change) what Canadians want from those they elect:

"Having considered the key points raised in that meeting, as well as the assurances provided by the Auditor General as to the process her Office would follow in doing the audit, the Board has decided to invite the Auditor General to undertake an audit of the House Administration and to grant her access to the House of Commons and its records."

Now that's more like it.

In looking through the Board's website, I found this interesting line:

"The Board of Internal Economy is committed to being transparent about the financial and operating matters of the House of Commons."

They should have added "...only when forced by public opinion".

Unfortunately, Ms. Fraser will only be spot-checking certain expenditures made by MPs and will only expand her audit to include all MPs if significant wrongdoing is found. As the rules stand now, any MP that is found in breach of the expenditure rules are forced to pay back the House, unfortunately, because the Board of Internal Economy meets in camera (in private), the identity of the offending MP is kept secret. Canadians had hoped that secrecy would not be an issue if Ms. Fraser had found irregularities, however, she has already stated that her report will not name names. That approach leaves MPs with little to fret over during their three month summer break. I would also rather that she was doing a full audit rather than a performance audit but at least this exercise will accomplish something.

For your information, here is the pdf file containing all of the major details about Members expenses for the fiscal year 2008 - 2009 from the Board of Internal Economy website which have, according to the Board, been audited by an independent accounting firm. At least with this document, we get a look at where some of the $583 million Parliamentary budget is spent. As well, the audit of the Financial Statements for the House of Commons for 2009 - 2010 is underway and will be posted to the Board's website when it is completed. It will be worth a look once it is released.

I think the whole exercise could have been avoided had legislation been in place that would require MPs to post their audited expenses on their government websites on an annual basis. Right now, three Liberal MPs are posting their expenses on their websites against the orders of Mr. Ignatieff; they are Michelle Simson, Rob Oliphant and Marlene Jennings. As a taxpayer, I for one would like to see legislation passed after the next general election that forces MPs to divulge how they are spending our money on a regular and readily available basis.

After the recent expense scandals in Newfoundland and Nova Scotia, it is the least that our MPs could and should do for those of us who faithfully send our tax dollars to Ottawa. Despite their protestations that spending controls are in place, Canadians still deserve proof that there is no wrong-doing from a neutral third party like Ms. Fraser.

Our trust in our politicians is blind but it shouldn't be stupid too.

Not Negotiating with Sheila Fraser

The story of Auditor-General Sheila Fraser's requested audit of MPs expenses has morphed slowly over this past weekend. Back in early May, the all-party Board of Internal Economy of the House of Commons rejected Ms. Fraser's request to audit the House of Commons, most specifically MP expenses which total over $500 million annually. The last time the expenses of the House of Commons and Senate were audited by the Auditor-General (Denis Desautels) was in 1991.

The NDP have decided (finally, after everyone else joined the party) that they will not stand in the way of further negotiations with Auditor-General Sheila Fraser regarding her request to audit MP expenses, following in the footsteps of the flip-flopping being done by both the Conservatives and Liberals. Earlier, the NDP had claimed that since Ms. Fraser was an officer of Parliament, an audit performed by her would be like "auditing her own bosses". Hardly. Like most Canadians, I don't believe that Ms. Fraser would be biased in performing an audit of Parliament since she appears to be quite independent of both the government and MPs. Most Canadians seem to trust Ms. Fraser's impartiality and integrity and, sadly, far more than we trust those we are forced to elect to public office election after election. In fact, I suspect she would hands-down win an electoral race should she chose to participate.

In the case of the Conservatives, Mr. Harper's spokesman Dimitri Soudas stated on Sunday that:

“The Prime Minister is keen to see discussions continue. He’s also keen to see this matter resolved with more transparency...”.

Perhaps, as usual, Mr. Harper is basing his new position on the results of the latest poll that shows that 88% of Canadians want to see an audit of MP expenses. Mr. Ignatieff also flip flopped stating that what he supported was:

"Sheila Fraser, the Auditor-General, coming to the Board of Internal Economy and talking about what she wants to do and then taking it from there..."

I find it most interesting (and more than a bit frustrating) that the NDP, Conservatives and Liberals are all forcing Ms. Fraser to "negotiate" and "discuss what she wants to do" with regard to an audit. There should be NO negotiation and NO discussion; this audit should be mandatory, non-negotiable and should be performed regularly (i.e. more frequently than every 10 to 15 years) to ensure both transparency and complete honesty.

Canada's Election Act should be changed before the next election requiring that all candidates from all Parties agree that their detailed expenses be posted on both their personal/MP websites and on the Parliamentary website. If the individual running for the office of MP is not willing to subscribe to complete transparency when it involves spending taxpayers' funds, then they should not be allowed to run. If potential MPs are not willing to tell us how they are spending our money, then they obviously have character deficiencies that make them poor candidates for political office. As I've posted previously, MP Michelle Simson (Liberal - Scarborough Southwest) posts her expenses on her website. Here is a screen cap of her disclosure (I hope she doesn't mind):

She sets a fine example to other MPs of all Parties; her expense statement is transparent, complete and detailed enough that it provides her constituents with an excellent view of the efficient manner in which she performs her duties. MP Marlene Jennings (Liberal - Notre-Dame-de-Grace-Lachine) also posts a "Proactive Disclosure" on her website. Both of these MPs set an exemplary precedent for the remainder of Canada's MPs.

In contrast, here's what we get from Board of Internal Economy through the Speaker of the House:

It is interesting to note that Finance Minister Jim Flaherty spent $18,266 on "Other" items when many of his fellow MPs had other expenses that were less than a few hundred dollars. This is where more detail is necessary.

Publicly traded Canadian corporations submit their financial statements to a full audit every year to assure shareholders that corporations are truthfully stating their financial health. While this doesn't always work (i.e. Nortel), it more or less ensures a level playing field for all Canadian corporations. In the case of Canada's Parliament, the Canadian public is the shareholder (i.e. owner) of the business and our elected officials are merely our employees. Without a regular audit, our employees can spend as they wish because they are not responsive or responsible to anyone but themselves. Under the present system, our MPs and Senators can increase spending without restriction. That has to change.

Go get 'em Ms. Fraser.

UPDATE:

From a CBC report this evening, it now appears that the Conservative government is willing to invite Ms. Fraser to conduct a performance or "value for money" audit and will announce a series (yet another) of proposals to ensure greater transparency (one of the CPC talking points) for MP and parliamentary expenses. The proposals will be taken to the Board of Internal Economy next week.

References:

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2010/05/26/mps-expenses-auditor-general.html

My Hero - Sheila Fraser

One item that the mainstream media covered briefly yesterday was the request by the Auditor-General General Sheila Fraser (my favourite civil servant along with Kevin Page). She had the unmitigated gall to ask our elected Members of Parliament and our Senators to audit their expenses. Needless to say, our MPs have such a sense of entitlement to our tax dollars that they told her to take a hike stating that this action would fall beyond the scope of her mandate. She is allowed to audit government departments and Crown corporations but not the legislative branch. Somehow, this just doesn't seem right to me.

For your information, it costs Canadians more than $500 million annually to run the legislative branch on Parliament Hill. With an expenditure of that size, certainly waste exists and there should be plenty of room for improvement exactly the same as there is in any large publicly traded corporation. As well, back in 2008, total office expenses for things like staff, travel, office rent etcetera claimed by Canada's 308 MPs reached $127 million, a jump of 42% since 2001. A jump of that size should have raised eyebrows. A separate group of expenses covers goods like telephone, printing office furniture and other improvements. This article in the Toronto Star from June 2009 is an interesting expose of how our MPs spend money

The Board of Internal Economy, a Parliamentary Committee that operates with absolutely no transparency, makes decisions in secret about MP and Senate office and other expenses. Canadian taxpayers know how much in total we are spending on these items, but we have no idea exactly what we're getting for our money. It is this same Board of Internal Economy that refused Ms. Fraser's request yesterday.

For your information, here are the members of the Board of Internal Economy and here's their mandate:

The Board claims that MPs expenses are audited externally, however, the last time the Auditor-General was "invited in" to perform an audit of expenses was 1991. I'd suggest that plenty has changed since that time; just look at the wasted tax dollars spent on "10 percenters". If MPs had to post their specific expenses for all Canadians to see, I'd suggest that the expenditure of $10 million annually on that program would have ended long ago.

In his budget of March 2010, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty projected that Canada would run a budget deficit of $49.2 billion for fiscal 2010 - 2011. By allowing the Auditor-General to examine expenses allowed for both MPs and Senators, savings could potentially be found.

After reading through the Globe and Mail article on this story, I did find one encouraging nugget. Scarborough Southwest MP Michele Simson (Liberal) has posted details of her expenses on her website for the sake of complete transparency. Congratulations to her! This should be the mandate, voluntary or otherwise, of all MPs and Senators. She does give Canadians an interesting snapshot of how our MPs are spending money. Her office budget was $129,000 annually back in 2008 - 2009 and she actually returned some of that money unspent. She spent a bit over $23,000 on travel and $5200 on printing. On the other hand, we have PEI's new Conservative Senator Mike Duffy who somehow managed to spend $100,848 on travel expenses alone during his first 3 months in office in 2009.

But I guess when you're entitled to spend someone else's money, you're not going to let a little thing like a threatened audit get in your way. I would suggest that if our MPs and Senators have nothing to hide, then they should let Ms. Fraser proceed with a thorough examination of their books but I suspect that's not the case.

UPDATE:

The Globe and Mail kindly posted a copy of the 2008 - 2009 expenses for all MPs here. It makes for fascinating reading!