Two new reports from the Auditor General show that the honour system is alive and well in both the Commons and the Senate, and it was all just a cursory look without digging into any MP or senator’s expenses. While the Senate has been making reforms to their internal processes before the current spending scandals erupted, the Commons has not, and it seems that only Justin Trudeau has been championing a more robust audit process by the AG. To hear Thomas Mulcair tell the tale, as he was all spring, the AG did a thorough and comprehensive audit and found no problems, which clearly is not the case.
Tag Archives: Auditor General
Roundup: The AG and the power of compliance
While Transport Canada went on record stating that three of the deficient areas found by previous audits were going to be rectified within a specified timeframe that had to do with an “extension” granted by the Auditor General’s office, the AG’s office said that they’re not in any position to grant any extensions because they don’t have enforcement mechanisms – it’s all Transport Canada’s responsibility to ensure compliance. So, yeah. Well done Transport. Elsewhere, Maclean’s has breakfast with the president of Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway, where he sort of clarifies some of his comments from the previous day.
Roundup: Denying consent for transparency
After QP yesterday, Justin Trudeau rose to seek unanimous consent for his four motions on greater transparency for parliament – MPs posting expenses, opening up Internal Economy, and calling in the Auditor General. None of them passed, and apparently it was the NDP who denied consent (though some reporters heard Conservatives dissent despite the party line being that they were in favour). What did pass was a motion from Nathan Cullen that would ban MPs from using their travel points to go to speaking gigs, as apparently the latest bout of Trudeau bashing is to assert that he apparently used his MP expenses to do speaking gigs, despite there not being any evidence to support this, and the fact that most speaking gigs include airfare as a standard part of the deal.
Roundup: Rathgeber wins the day
It really was Brent Rathgeber’s day yesterday, from the very start when CBC’s Laura Payton caught up with him at the airport, and he said a lot of wonderfully civically literate things about the role of backbenchers to act as a check on the executive, and how executive control nowadays has bled so far into the committee system that it is a threat to our Westminster-style democracy. Rathgeber explained more on his blog, and his intention to largely vote with the Conservatives going forward, but will evaluate all decisions on a case-by-case basis. At the press conference he called in his riding, he also put the boots to the PMO, basically saying that they run themselves without involving Harper, which really makes one wonder who is running the show, since they’re the ones writing the scripts that they expect the backbenchers to read. Colby Cosh looks at the seven Conservative MPs who were responsible for gutting Rathgeber’s bill in committee. The one who moved the amendments, Brad Butt, gave Huffington Post an excuse that it was to avoid big bureaucracy getting involved, and to try it at the most senior levels first, but it seems fairly nonsensical.
Roundup: Call in the Auditor General!
Today in ClusterDuff reverberations, we hear that the Government Leader in the Senate, Marjorie LeBreton, wants to call in the Auditor General to do a full comprehensive audit of Senators’ expenses, not just the systems and administration audit that he did in 2012. There have been concerns in the past that the AG, being an officer of parliament, would be in a kind of conflict auditing his own bosses, but we’ll see if those remain. LeBreton didn’t consult with the opposition about the motion, but the Liberals have since said sure – but audit the Commons’ expenses in as comprehensive manner as well. And the Government Whip, Gordon O’Connor, doesn’t sound like he’s too keen about that idea, pretending that the last AG audit into systems and administration on the House side was “comprehensive” (which it wasn’t). There are also questions as to whether the AG’s office is set to handle this kind of forensic audit, or if it wouldn’t be better to send it to an outside firm with that kind of expertise. Elsewhere, Senator Tkachuk says that they will be setting up a permanent audit subcommittee for the Senate, but they are still discussing whether or not it will have outside members (such as what Senator McCoy suggested, as they do in the House of Lords).
QP: What Nigel Wright did was wrong
With Harper still away, now in Colombia, and Justin Trudeau on an Atlantic Canada mall food court tour, and Thomas Mulcair, well, elsewhere, it was only Elizabeth May as the sole party leader in the House. That left it up to David Christopherson to kick off QP on behalf of the NDP by shouting out his script about Senator Duffy’s primary residency. James Moore, the designated back-up PM du jour, assured him that new questions had been raised which was why the report was being re-evaluated. Christopherson and then Françoise Boivin tried to then press about the knowledge in the PMO of the payment from Nigel Wright to the Senator, of any documents, but Moore repeated the PM’s long-distance assurances that he didn’t know anything about the deal until it was in the media. Ralph Goodale was up next, asking why it took so long for the PM to act about the revelation of Wright’s involvement, and offer a reminder of the Criminal Code sanctions for such a payment. Moore simply repeated the official denial of knowledge of what happened.
Roundup: A Liberal win in Labrador
The people of Labrador have spoken, and by a rather large margin have decided that Liberal Yvonne Jones should represent them in the House of Commons, rather than forgiving Peter Penashue and giving him another chance. The wisdom on the ground is that this was entirely a local race and had almost nothing to do with the national scene, Justin Trudeau’s leadership and whatnot. Penashue said he accomplished more in two years than any other MP anywhere, which is the kind of hyperbole we’ve come to expect from the guy who apparently did ALL THE THINGS for Labrador, and hence this defeat will be Labrador’s loss. The Conservative Party also issued a graceless statement which nevertheless tried to turn it into some kind of indictment of Trudeau’s leadership, claiming they lost twenty points since his leadership win (though no one has seemed to find any polls which had them over seventy percent), and claiming that majority governments don’t normally win by-elections (which is also not exactly true, considering how many they’ve won to date). Jones’ win means this is the first time that the Liberals have increased their seat count at the ballot box in over a decade (the only other time they’ve increased their count, of course, being when Lise St-Denis defected from the NDP).
QP: Scurrilous accusations of the Other Place
With the March For Life having left the lawn outside the Hill, and Mark Warawa having won his little victory by making a statement on female “gendercide” in the House, Question Period got started with Thomas Mulcair reading a question on whether the government would back the NDP’s opposition day motion on the improperly reported $3.1 billion in anti-terrorism funds. Harper got up and calmly reminded him that the Auditor General himself said the money was not misspent, and they will follow through on improving their reporting on the future. Mulcair then turned to the issue of the Senate audits and made a number of scurrilous accusations about the character of the Other Place. Harper said that the external auditors found ambiguities in the rules but that the Senate expected better of its members and they would be repaying the money owed. For his final question, Mulcair asked about a woman who was denied benefits while she received treatment for breast cancer while on maternity leave. Harper said that they recently changed the rules in order to ensure that these instances wouldn’t happen again. For the Liberals, Dominic LeBlanc asked about the government’s wasteful spending on ads and media monitoring instead of youth summer jobs. Diane Finley rose to take that question, and rejected the premise, and touted the launch of the Canada Summer Jobs programme. Ralph Goodale was up next, asking the same in English — and got the very same response. For his final question, Goodale asked about the demise of the long-form census, noting that some small towns were wiped out because of insufficient data. Christian Paradis responded with the red herring about a larger sample size ignoring the actual statistical invalidity of much of the data.
QP: Money in the banana stand
Wednesday, caucus day, and the benches were mostly full. Thomas Mulcair started off by reading a pair of questions about the improperly reported $3.1 billion in anti-terror funds, and showed just how with it he is by making an Arrested Development reference, asking if the money was in the banana stand. Harper ignored it and once again assured him that the Auditor General said that the money was not misspent. Mulcair then turned to the issue of Treasury Board taking an active hand in the collective bargaining of Crown Corporations. Harper reminded him that the government backstops these Crown Corporations, and with some of them in financial difficulty, they had an obligation to ensure that taxpayer’s money was being treated responsibly. For his final question, Mulcair brought up the demise of the mandatory long-form census, as the National Household Survey data was released today. Harper responded with congratulations to Statistics Canada for the data release and praise for how high quality the data was. Justin Trudeau was then up, and after paying mention to the long-form census, he turned to the question of those Economic Action Plan™ ads, and how each spot they run during the playoffs, it costs the same as 32 student summer jobs. Harper first repeated his congratulations to Statistics Canada, before he moved onto the necessity of informing Canadians of how well the economy is doing by way of those ads.
Roundup: Economic action tautology
Apparently it’s important that we keep being exposed to Economic Action Plan™ advertisements ad nauseum because Canadians have confidence in the economy – or so says Stephen Harper. Which begs the question – do they have confidence in the economy because of the ads, or are the ads to showcase that they have confidence? At which point it all starts getting circular and resembling a tautology. Scott Brison, meanwhile, wants you to know that for every $95,000 the government spends to air one of these ads during the hockey playoffs, 32 students could get a summer position for that money. But – confidence!