Canada PoliticsLiberal leader Justin Trudeau wins praise for raising bar on financial transparency
Since becoming leader, Justin Trudeau hasn't regaled his adoring public with any detailed policies. Instead, he's chosen to speak in broad terms and generalities.
This is an exception.
On Wednesday, Trudeau held court, on Parliament Hill, outlining his four-point plan to make Parliamentarians more accountable and their finances more transparent.
[ Related: An audit of the Senate: What took them so long? ]
Here are the four points as explained in a Liberal Party statement:
- Require Members of Parliament and Senators to proactively disclose travel and hospitality expenses made by them and their staff.
- Introduce legislation to make meetings of the Board of Internal Economy of the House of Commons open and transparent to the public. The ability of the committee to go in-camera where necessary (for example, on sensitive HR matters) will remain, but not as is currently the case, as a default. The Senate Board of Internal Economy is already public.
- Create a common, quarterly and more detailed online expense report for spending by Members of Parliament and the Senate that is also more easily accessed and usable by the public from the home page of the Parliament of Canada website.
- The House and Senate Boards of Internal Economy should work with the Auditor General to develop mandatory performance audits of the House of Commons and Senate administration every three years, and public guidelines under which the Auditor General is called in to perform more detailed audits of parliamentary spending.
Trudeau — with protesters holding "Just in over his head" signs behind him — said that Liberals will begin posting their expenses in the fall and hope that the other parties follow suit.
According to the Huffington Post, the NDP isn't jumping on board.
NDP house leader Nathan Cullen wouldn’t commit to the posting of MP expenses, saying the measure would be onerous on House of Commons administration, and that other options should be looked at.
But others are praising the move.
Gregory Thomas of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation told Yahoo! Canada News that Trudeau's announcement was a significant one.
"Federal Liberal leader Justin Trudeau is showing leadership on cleaning up the Senate expense scandal today. He’s moving away from some of the members of the old-boys club in the Senate Liberal caucus," Gregory Thomas of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation told Yahoo! Canada News.
"Notably, Justin Trudeau is pushing for accountability, both from MPs and Senators. The government and the NDP opposition have been trying to keep the Senate expense scandal confined to the Senate, when they know full well that the same problems with disclosure apply to the House of Commons.
"He is calling for detailed and proactive expense disclosure, with MPs and senators posting detailed quarterly financial reports online, in a format that allows members of the media and people like us to do number crunching."
[ Related: Senate scandal helping NDP leader Thomas Mulcair gets his groove back ]
Thomas adds that he'd like to see Trudeau go further, however, and give the media and the public full access to all receipts.
"Mr. Trudeau should continue to put pressure on the government and the holdouts in his own caucus to go all the way with disclosure," he noted.
"That said, Justin Trudeau is the first federal leader to announce concrete proposals to make Senators and MPs more accountable. Trudeau’s announcement is an important step in the right direction."
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