Does anyone know if any MPs have their expenses listed online yet?

If a few MPs were to post their expenses, and their constituents could see them, that would put pressure on other MPs to follow. Especially if constituents across Canada start to ask why they can see other MPs expenses but not their own MP's.

What a sorry, pathetic lot of people we've sent to Ottawa.

I can't believe this is being discussed in a weirdly similar way to the Afghanistan documents. There's no national security at stake here. There's no process, no parameters – nothing to talk about.

Release the f*cking details of how you spend our f*cking money!!!!

Or quit and let us elect representatives who remember who they work for.

kthx.

Hey, where have all of the “Parliament is Supreme!” folks gone?

Hello…Hello?

I dunno, I've had my mind changed on this issue after listening to Adam Vaughan talk about it on the radio a few months back. His main argument was that at the end of the day a lot of ink and outrage is spilled over such a miniscule percentage of operating costs, at the expense of real, substantive issues.

It seems to me that releasing expense reports seems to do little else but fuel sensationalist headlines. Remember when opponents of Adam Giambrone lost their collective minds when it came out that he expensed $2400 in cab rides for a year? It was front page news on all the dailies. What wasn't headline news was when it came out later that his expenses were actually on the lower end in comparison to other councillors. I mean sure it's all well and good that Rob Ford buys his own pencils…but does that alone make him a good politician?

Basically I think releasing expense reports almost invariably leads to tempest in teapotism.

"It seems to me that releasing expense reports seems to do little else but fuel sensationalist headlines."

Sure, there will be some unfair coverage of spending. But is that really a justification to keep the spending of public money private? It's not like politicians don't have to deal with public idiocy on many other fronts – it comes with the job.

Reasonable people won't get their shorts in knot over discretionary use of well managed budget. The point of this isn't necessarily expose improper spending. It's our money, and it's our right to see how it's used, Full stop.

If you owned a company and your employees were spending thousands, millions or billions on expenses… would you want to know what they're spending it on? Even if you trust them, would you want the ability to check on them if you got curious?

MPs are our employees. We own the company.

It's easy for a politician like Vaughan to laugh about the "nickels and dimes" because it's not his nickels and dimes he's spending. It's my nickel and your dime. And I care about it.

P.S. Vaughan's nickels and dimes added up to $52,798.03 in tax free expenses last year (none, by the way, for office operating costs — those are paid directly by City Hall). That's more than the average Canadian makes in salary.

I think it's a practical issue, too. If politicians can't even handle their own expenses properly, how can they be trusted on any aspect of public spending. And I also think there's a level of hypocrisy involved, too. Credibility as well. There's a lot of self-righteousness that comes from politicians on a lot of issues, including on what's supposed to be for the public good. They then turn around and use public funds to meet lavish private tastes.

However, beyond that, just from the perspective of public disclosure, democratic accountability, and even basic decency, I don't know how one can argue to keep these expenses banned from public view.

Fair enough, maybe I just have less faith in the general public's ability to remain reasonable than you do :)

You mean democracy?

I think you would find it very rare that a politician is actually mihandling their expenses – only that it would appear they are in the absence of context (i.e. "MP SPENDS $1000 ON COFFEE" is actually "MP buys $600 espresso machine (and cups, grounds, milk, sugar etc etc) for his office for use in meetings.)

Like I said, I have a far bigger issue with how government contracts are handed out (one small example being the $1500 contract my girlfriend signed off on a few summers back for the City of Toronto to have 5 locks changed on the CNE grounds).

I just have a hard time getting full of righteous indignation over this stuff I guess.

Basically I think that at the end of the day, these kinds of expense releases are less about democratic accountability and more about cheap sensationalism.

I personally see little wrong with having an independent auditor look at expense reports privately and only make them public if there was evidence of impropriety. (Am I right in assuming that this is the current arrangement?)

I would suspect that it would include staff as well. Like I said, I see your argument – I think it's the lack of context that I think invariably gets abused.

I think a system where impropriety is made public would be an excellent idea.

In other words, your position is that these expenses should be hidden from the public because it might cause some relatively minor embarrassment. Really?

No, that's not my position at all. My position is that what we end up with are countless stories about improper spending (and almost invariably out of context) at the expense of actual information.

That's exactly what we need. Though it needs to be verified independently.

First, I think you exaggerate the media impact. Most of these stories last for one day. It's the truly outrageous expenses that leave a lasting impression, as well they should. All kinds of stories get torqued by the media, does that mean we throw democratic accountability out the window, or freedom of the press?

While I generally find you to be predisposed towards antagonism, and I'm sure this is exactly the sort of thing Richard is afraid will happen if the numbers are released, I happen to think it's a fair and reasonable question. Appropriately spent monies can be easily explained.

and??

did that story last for one day?

(and yes, I am implicitly agreeing that the whole l'affaire jaffer is/was also a teapotted tempest)

I get the impression that you'd be perfectly fine with countless headlines about politicians expensing breath mints taking up all the oxygen in the room.

I wouldn't.

I guess we'll just have to disagree then.