Why is it conservative politicians and senators think it is their right to spend as much as they can, as fast as they can, on themselves?
This last expose on senators Mike Duffy, Pam Wallin, etc, illustrates how stupid they think Canadians are ... and how apathetic Canadians are to bad behaviour by our politicians. Harper implied he had reviewed Wallin's $320 travel expenses (since Sept 2010) and found it acceptable ... later recanted....
Kevin Page has performed a great service for Canadians, as he completes his 5 year term as the first Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO). The mandate is:
"to provide independent analysis to Parliament on the state of the nation's finances, the government's estimates and trends in the Canadian economy; and upon request from a committee or parliamentarian, to estimate the financial cost of any proposal for matters over which Parliament has jurisdiction."
As he indicates, it is political (and civil service) suicide to accept the job of PBO. His replacement has not been named and may not be for some time.
Pls read the Toronto Star article (April 1, 2013). This is another example of Harper advocating and setting up an outside control of parliamentary spending (when he was in opposition) and then disregarding its guidance completely.
Anyone remember the name of the current auditor general - Michael Ferguson?
Let's see how he gets along with Harper. He must report on progress of Kyoto Protocol every 2 years.
It was the auditor general criticism of senator expense claims that prompted this recent senate auditing activity.
Due to the nature of politicians (apparent total disrespect for taxpaying dollars), every Canadian needs to visibly support these two offices.
Posts
Is one Party ever less guilty than the next when it comes to these kinds of issues? With Justin Trudeau one should be careful about what they are wishing for... We will likely continue to do what we normally do: punish the party in power and bring in the next party either all the way (or part of the way = minority government where it is hard to get anything done) and then punishing that party in the hopes of getting something better again.
ReplyDelete"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Albert Einstein quotes from BrainyQuote.com.
The expense of changing parties in power is likely many times more expensive than a few thousand Expense Report discretions.
If the country is "running well" we should be happy with that and leave well enough alone and get on with our retirement years! (or months and days as the case may be...one never really knows so don't waste them)