Controversies over ethics in government usually have a pretty short shelf life. There’s always a new scandal to talk about.
By usual standards, the furor over whether auditor general Sheila Fraser should be allowed to examine MP expense reports should have perished by now.
Especially after it became known that Conservative Party election funding practices might end up poisoning the careers of three cabinet ministers.
But the audit story just won’t die, and the reason for that is because this isn’t about audits or transparency. It’s about the deepening gulf between government and the people.
In short, governments obviously don’t understand how deeply we mistrust them. That applies provincially as well as federally.
One could fill this space with recent instances of elected officials using expense accounts to put a power generator at their cottage, or having the taxpayers cover exorbitant fees for relatives to do office cleaning. Or how a provincial premier on a six-figure public salary has been getting annual $75,000 bonus cheques from his party, which is connected to increasingly tainted fundraising.
Or of expensing trips to conferences that would finance a six-month world tour for most of the rest of us, who are footing the bills. But this issue has moved well past listing of venality of individual politicians. We’re getting mad enough to want to hang them all by their toes.
In Nova Scotia, an expenses scandal has been referred to the RCMP. Just the investigation could run into the next provincial election campaign — in three years.
Bill Estabrooks, the province’s energy minister said: “That would be obscene as far as I’m concerned.” He acknowledged that all politicians are being tarred while this investigation is going on. “Let’s get this thing cleared up,” he said.
Don’t count on it.
In Ottawa, it will take a vote by all parties to override a House of Commons Board of Internal Economy decision to keep the auditor general away from MP expense claims.
The Bloc Quebecois came out early, saying Fraser should have access to MP expense reports.
Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff at first supported blocking Fraser from reporting how MPs are using (or abusing) their expense accounts. By last Wednesday, he was suggesting there was room for negotiation. By Friday, he was being chewed out for going this far, when the Liberal caucus had firmly decided to stonewall.
NDP Leader Jack Layton has the opposite problem. He’s stonewalling while his caucus members are crying out for an audit, just to clear the air. (One must assume NDP MPs don’t have very large expense accounts.)
The Conservatives, being the government, won’t tell anyone anything. But then again, they’ve got an election spending scandal to think about.
And, well, so do we.
Coming out of a recession and into a jobless recovery, Canadians aren’t in a mood to be generous to politicians who give billions of tax dollars to billionaire businessmen to save their companies. Not after we learn about the bonuses many of those executives took with the money.
Not after the talk has turned to tax hikes and service cutbacks — now that the rich and powerful have had their chance to skim the federal treasury.
Winnipeg NDP MP Pat Martin told the Globe and Mail: “We’re getting the shit kicked out of us all across the country.”
Oh no, you’re not. The real kicking has not yet begun.
CBC and CTV national political panel shows are having trouble finding politicians willing to come on the air, if they know the spending scandal will be one of the topics discussed.
Maybe do have a clue about how little they are trusted.
Greg Neiman is an Advocate editor.