Canada PoliticsEx-Liberal Senators’ expense disclosures not good enough: taxpayer watchdog
This a good news / bad news story.
The good news is that former Liberal senators have finally made good on a promise to proactively disclose their travel expenses.
The bad news is that it really doesn't provide much detail at all.
One of the blatant omissions is that their disclosures — unlike the Conservative senator disclosures — doesn't include spousal travel.
A CBC report from last week, analyzing Conservative expenses noted that a number of Tory senators routinely charged taxpayers to bring spouses with them on trips to Ottawa.
Yahoo Canada News sent an email to Senator James Cowan asking him to explain why the ex-Liberal senators didn't provide the same level of information.
Here's his response:
"The commitment which Mr Trudeau made on behalf of all Liberal MPs and Senators in August was that, on a quarterly basis, we would disclose our travel and hospitality expenses in the same way and with the same level of detail as is required of Ministers.
"That is exactly what has been done."
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Gregory Thomas of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation doesn't necessarily buy that explanation.
"The Liberals say they’re matching the disclosure of cabinet ministers, but the key difference is that anyone can obtain the actual documents and receipts [of ministers] that confirm the spending, along with details like $16 glasses of orange juice," he said, explaining that you can't get that information about MPs or senators.
"The Liberals have made a great start with being accountable for their travel expenses. We’d like to see them extend this disclosure to cover all the spending they are responsible for: their office budgets, contracts, hospitality, and travel to foreign conferences."
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The Liberal disclosures, which can be seen here, do include dates, airfare costs and meals.
On a two-day trip in September, for example, Cowan, spent $3,817.79 on return airfare between Toronto and Halifax, $238.75 on meals and $100 on accommodations. The only explanation taxpayers receive is that the trip was for a "meeting with stakeholders on legislation before Parliament."
Conservative senate expenses can be found on individual senators' websites.
(Photo courtesy of the Canadian Press)
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