Sheila Fraser's audit of MP expenses vetoed by Speaker and all four parties

The phrase "witch hunt"  was put in quotes like it would be a bad thing in this case.

It's outrageous, and I will insist upon assuming the worst of all-- ALL-- our M.P.'s.

Of course they have been stealing from us.  Why else would the go to such lengths to hide their expenses?

Someone has probably expensed something trivial and/or embarassing.

Doug wrote:

Someone has probably expensed something trivial and/or embarassing.

Chances are that just about every single MP has at some time or other expensed something that is perfectly legal but which is either trivial or embarrassing enough to merit an above the fold headline in the Toronto Sun or the Star. A couple of months ago the Toronto Star had a scremaing headline that was bigger than what they used the day after 9/11 to announce that Adam Giambrone had taken a $10 cab ride when there was a busline that he could have taken and then a few days later another 9/11 sized above the fold headline that some other city councillor expensed rental of a costume to wear to a charity costume party he had been invited to.

I already know that someone from the Toronto Sun steals the garbage from in front of the Layton/Chow household every week in a vain attempt to catch them putting something recyclable in the garbage so they can run an above the fold headline about it. If the yellow press got their hands on every single receipt - I guarantee that it would be a Pandora's box of headline grabbing things like "Charlie Angus (just to pick a random name) expensed a quarter breast and fries at Swiss Chalet - even though if he had ordered the Festive Special he would have saved "the taxpayer" a dollar and gotten a Toblerone chocolate bar as well."

Then the next six months fo political coverage in Canada would be dominated by a "gotcha politics" witch-hunt with each newspaper tryting to outdo each other over who can uncover the silliest expense claim.  The net result of it all would be no discussion of any real issues, people all coming to the conclusion that "all politicians are crooks", further declines in voter turnout (which only benefits the Conservatives) and you get the picture. It would also feed into more Tea Party-style anti-government hysteria.

I know this is an unpopular position for me to take - but those are the reasons why I think its just as well that Sheila Fraser isn't going to go on a witch hunt of MPs expenses.

Sure, we'd have endless articles about MPs expensing stupid stuff...but then MPs might learn not to expense stupid stuff!

I don't doubt that each and every M.P. would point to this as the reason, Stockholm.

And, I don't doubt that each and every M.P. saying so is a bare faced lying thief.

$533 million is a lot of money. But it's nowhere near the kind of corporate welfare payments made to their corporate and banking friends over the years. I don't understand why we should be so upset over this and not the tens of billions of dollars they given away to the corporate sector over the years - and the same one that has basically abandoned any sens of responsibility to create jobs in Canada today.

We wll find out that there are no consequences. Since all parties agreed that Fraser should not do the "audit" no party can take advantage of the issue so it will be a wash. Maybe if someone forms a single issue party called the "let Sheila Fraser do an MP audit" they get a handful of votes - otherwise - nada.

You know I can honestly say I have not worried for 1 minute what individual MP's were spending their "allotments" on, ever.  For any party.

However, feeding those friends and  lobbyists by way of access to tax payer's dollars, is a whole other kettle of fish.

Think this whole issue is just a BS propaganda move to get the focus off of the illegal lobbying  going on and the CONing by the CONS

Fidel wrote:

$533 million is a lot of money. But it's nowhere near the kind of corporate welfare payments made to their corporate and banking friends over the years. I don't understand why we should be so upset over this and not the tens of billions of dollars they given away to the corporate sector over the years - and the same one that has basically abandoned any sens of responsibility to create jobs in Canada today.

There's no reason one cannot be upset over both, or all the corruption, Fidel.    In fact, it's hard not to see that it isn't all related; and not just the flow of money, either, but other forms of corruption, like Zaccardeli delivering his "real" testimony via manila envelope after stringing along a parliamentary committee the day before, and parliament letting him get away with it-- for one example that just comes to mind at the moment.  I'll probably think of several dozen more after I finish this post.

It paints a picture, and it paints a picture of an institution that is rotten to the core, and begging us to do something about it. 

But as you said in another thread, Canadians are too polite.

Oh, that Tommy Paine, he does go on and on, doesn't he?

He does:

Let us remember not really that long ago, the bleating of David Dingwall "I am entitled to my entitlements".   It was the story of the week at the time, if I recall, and was probably part of the on going focus on "Liberal" corruption following Ad Scam. 

Thing is, poor Dingwall was right.  He WAS entitled to his entitlements, and he did nothing wrong.  Nothing wrong legally, of course.  He controvined no laws that were written... Lo and Behold! by his buddies!  

I have to ask, if we elected the assassin party, and they legalized murder, would murder then be, like, Okay?   I'm betting your answer is substantively different from anyone connected with Parliament these days.

Name escapes me at the moment, but we have a Senator who used the RCMP, and an RCMP that allowed itself to be used to intimidate and harrass an ordinary citizen who drew question to the Senators use of public land.   To no consequence to any of the wrong doers.

Thing is, for these things to happen, there has to be a level of feeling in regards to entitlement and privelege in our leadership that western civilization has perhaps not seen since before the French Revolution.    There are too many that believe-- with good cause, as evidenced by the selective blindness of law enforcement, judicial system and parliament, that they are above the law.

At the very least, being as charitable as I can possibly be, our leadership acts as if it has had a lobotomy in the part of the brain that discerns right from wrong.

In good times, when the money is flowing this is all fun and games, or just plain politics.  But too many Canadians are out of work or working for substantially less-- being the ones taking the consequences for at least a generation of legislative malfeasance on the economy.

And, next, these "you can't see my expense account"  M.P's will be travelling the land, decrying, or backing, why we need this or that cut to your kids or grandkids education, or to the neonatal care unit, or the kid's cardiac unit in your town.

Why have we not strung these bastards up by the thumbs?

I believe that MP's expenses are already audited and that the auditior's report is made public.   I think what Sheila Fraser is proposing is a performance audit - questioning the cost effectiveness of choices.  I would think if people are able to see the dollars (I believe that the NDP is proposing that the posted categories be expanded), that is enough for voters to make a value judgement.  I would have trouble though having an accountant provide judgement on whether my MP spent travel dollars to support a protest outside of his or her riding.

Far as I'm concerned there should be nothing done by our government or its agents that the citizens should not know about .. and that includes all government contract, all military decisions, and all policing and justice decisions.

If the government thinks they have a legitimate reason to hold back something from the people, then they should have to apply, and reapply annually, for permission to do so.

If this means that the "yellow media" will make hay over trivial issues, then it's time to fix the mdeia, not hide more things from them.

Layton's assertion that it's allready transparent is wrong.  Without access to reciepts to back up the numbers reported on line, the numbers are meaningless.

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/article/803425--auditor-battling-otta...

“There would be a testing of samples of transactions,” she explained to nervous senators, whom she also proposed to audit. “If we find one or two things that are perhaps not absolutely perfect, we do not publicize that, or make a big deal about it. If there is a complete lack of any kind of procedure, then it would obviously be more significant.”

So, it seems it's not nickle and dime stuff being blown out of preportion by the Toronto Sun that politicians are afraid of, it's a complete lack of any kind of procedure that they want to keep from the auditor.

The pundits on CTV's QP just said there's no way for the MPs to win this, because the AG is the credibility Gold Standard, and Craig Oliver repeated that Gilles Duceppe is the only party leader to agree to the AG's request.

They do submit receipts to the officers of the house who reimburse MPs for theiur expenditures - and those officers routinely question and/or reject receipts for things they feel are not justifiable.

The panel on QP is right that there is no way for the MPs to "win" the battle of public opinion. But the fact is that by the time of the next election, this will be ancient history. From the point of view of MPs from all parties - one day of negative stories is preferable to six months of tabloids running daily above the fold headlines about who ordered white meat instead of dark at Swiss Chalet costing "the taxpayer" an extra dollar.

But question to me is more of scope.  MP's are currently audited and the results are published.  My limited experience with audits is that they always test by checking the receipts etc... (to differing degrees).  When Sheila Fraser does a performance audit she looks at the effectiveness of the expense as well.  This I think is where the MP's are drawing the line.  Should someone be told that they are wasting taxpayer money because they choose to pay their cleaning staff a living wage?

I'm of mixed feelings on this one. Of course I support accountability and transparency. However, the tone of the discussion in Toronto has taken a nasty turn with Councillor and now mayoral candidate Rob Ford who questions the legitimacy of ANY city councillors expenses. He is rich and pays his expenses out of his own pocket and then attacks others for using their taxpayer funded expense accounts. He doesn't report to taxpayers in his ward with mailers. The implication is that only the rich should be in politics and that they should dig into their own pockets. 

Now that's cynical T_P! (not that I don't think the Tories are beneath it).

It has been said that the Senate should be abolished... don't recall what quarter that came from, maybe those liars on the left.  But that would certainly save  a smackeroo or two.   Wouldn't it?

I think the left for the most part has come to love the appointed members of the upper house.    

I'm convinced that if one took all the money an accountant could trace to corruption, it probably wouldn't be enough to make an appreciable dent in either the debt or deficit.   Well, it might make a dent, but it's not enough to solve many problems, let alone be some kind of panacea.

It's the costs one cannot trace that is hurting us the most.   Dingwall's war cry of the kleptocracy entrenches the idea that government is there to serve the interests of the select few instead of the broader public interests. 

If one does not think this is in fact costing us trillions in terms of money, and eroding our freedoms and liberty, then one is sadly misstaken.

Taken singularly, they are small treasons.  But they add up.

What's the GDP been since 1837?   And what could it have been if we did not carry the overburden of a thieving upper class?

Trillions may be an understatement.

MPs Paranoid About Possible Spending Audit

http://thechronicleherald.ca/Front/1183006.html

"Duff Conacher, of the government watchdog group Democracy Watch, agrees that the legislation gives Fraser the right to do an audit..In fact, he says, she will be letting down Canadians if she lets herself be put off. 'She has to do it at least periodically, and given that it's been 20 years, it's far past time and she is failing to fulfil a requirement of her duties under Section 6 of the Auditor General Act' he said. 'And she doesn't need an invitation.'

NDP Faces Growing Pressure to Let Auditor Vet Parliamentary Expenses

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/ndp-faces-growing-pressure-...

"NDP leader Jack Layton is facing growing pressure from within his caucus to let the Auditor General go through Parliament's books. Should these voices win out, the NDP's support would tip the scales in favour of Auditor General Sheila Fraser and leave the governing Conservatives as the only party opposed to the idea.."

and if the Cons decide to support the idea it will leave the NDP as the only party opposed to the idea...

I have never trusted Sheila Fraser. She seems like an empire builder.

I think someone should audit the Auditor-General - for all we know she's been buying mink stoles and expensing them!