Beyond The Commons

Aaron Wherry covers all the goings-on in and around Parliament Hill. Follow Aaron on Twitter: @aaronwherry

Categories: Beyond The Commons, Capital Read

'Seriously, it's not my money'

by Aaron Wherry on Wednesday, March 24, 2010 11:18am - 13 Comments

For those keeping score at home, Jack Layton says he’s not in favour of turning over the House of Commons books to the auditor general. Michelle Simson makes the case for doing so.

She said that if MPs are afraid to let Fraser look at their books, they can’t blame people for being suspicious. ”Without that kind of scrutiny, I don’t think we’ll ever be able to successfully convince Canadians that what happened in Britain can’t happen here,” Simson said…

Simson said the benefits of performance reviews and value-for-money audits go far beyond catching embarrassing spending from MPs, as the budget for the House of Commons and Senate is $533 million and every other branch of the public service is subject to Fraser’s audits. ”When it’s combined, it’s a huge amount of money,” Simson said. “And it’s one thing to make sure the columns add up. It’s a performance issue in terms of making sure that she could see a trend. She could see an economy of scale. She could see ways we could save money.”

Tags: auditor general, expenses, house of commons, Jack Layton, Michelle Simson, Parliament, Sheila Fraser

More by Aaron Wherry

http://intensedebate.com/people/madeyoulook madeyoulook

Go, Michelle, Go!
Whiskey

Jack is in favour of not being open and transparent.
Standing By

This Grand Inquiry into everyone's petty cash drawer is unstoppable. It's just a matter of time. Jack should know that.
http://intensedebate.com/people/Gaunilon Gaunilon

What's to lose here, folks? Just do it!

The only reason for not opening the books that I can think of is also the strongest reason for opening the books.

Lord Kitchener's Own

The only reason for not opening the books that I can think of is also the strongest reason for opening the books.

One might argue that this applies to another current controversy on the Hill as well.

http://intensedebate.com/people/Stewart_Smith Stewart_Smith

Personally, I would prefer if their expenses were simply made public, i.e. published on the web, rather than a review by Frasier. I have no doubts of Frasier's competence and her ability to meet her objectives. My concern is that one of her objectives seems to be to make headlines with her reports.

http://intensedebate.com/people/OntarioTown OntarioTown

Interesting point. Didn't Paul Martin's gang put their expenses up on a website?

http://intensedebate.com/people/George_Pringle George_Pringle

Martin put Minister's offices up on a website. Not MPs.

http://intensedebate.com/people/LynnTO LynnTO

Good auditors almost always find ways that organizations could spend their money more efficiently. When auditors' reports are made public, "spending money more efficiently" usually gets translated to "so and so is wasting billions!"

Anon001

The NDP has a lot of cousins and whatnots on staff? Is that the problem here?
http://intensedebate.com/people/OntarioTown OntarioTown

You only want it denied if you have something to hide
Lord Kitchener's Own

So, will this lead to a coalition between Jack and Stephen to keep the books closed?

When the Liberals and the traitors want transparency and the Conservatives and socialists want to thwart it, what's a boy to do?

How do I choose between the pro-transparency coalition with traitors and the anti-transparency coalition with socialists???
Anon Liberal

Boy the optics are not good if you oppose this.