Reporting work-related expenses, including receipts, to your employer is standard procedure 鈥� unless you鈥檙e a member of Parliament. That should change. It鈥檚 our money 鈥� we鈥檙e entitled to know how it is spent.
Elizabeth May, the MP for Saanich-Gulf Islands has released her personal and office expenses for the 2012-13 fiscal year, complete with 327 pages of receipts and invoices, and has called on other MPs to do the same. They should heed that call.
Parliamentary regulations state how much an MP can claim for various expenses associated with official duties. Those expenditures are posted each year on Parliament鈥檚 website, with a breakdown by category of how much each MP spends.
May takes it a huge step further by posting copies of her receipts. It鈥檚 an eye-glazing exercise to go through the receipts, but we know more than what she spent 鈥� we know how she spent it.
Do MPs use the maximum allowed, or do they just take what they need? Do they respect the sanctity of public money, or do they feel entitled to whatever they can get? We don鈥檛 know, because unlike May, they鈥檙e not telling us.
Some might accuse May of politicking, as she points out how she uses only what is necessary, sometimes paying her own expenses rather than submitting claims. She claimed a bit more than $800 for travel costs within her riding, one per cent of what she鈥檚 entitled to claim. Her per diem claim for the time spent in Ottawa while Parliament was in session came to $4,200 鈥� an MP could claim up to about $11,000 for that period.
She claimed $18,600 for secondary-residence costs, billing taxpayers only for rent, but picking up phone, utilities and other costs herself.
She chooses to fly economy, rather than first class. Air travel for MPs is reported in points, rather than actual dollar amounts, with each point being a round trip between home and Ottawa or elsewhere in sa国际传媒 as required by official duties. Each MP is allotted 64 points a year.
May made 15 round trips and estimates her yearly travel cost is $12,000. Had she flown business class, as allowed by MPs鈥� travel rules, the bill would be about $79,000.
Her frugality undoubtedly plays well in her home riding, and so it should. It鈥檚 a good day when a politician realizes doing the right thing is good political strategy.
MPs鈥� expenses have been overseen by the Board of Internal Economy, a secretive committee comprising members of all recognized parties in the House. That body has refused to be audited by the federal auditor general.
The federal New Democrats succeeded this week in getting approval for a motion to replace the board with an independent body to oversee Commons expenditures, but it will be nearly a year before changes take place.
Randall Garrison, NDP MP for Esquimalt-Juan de Fuca, and Victoria NDP MP Murray Rankin say they are awaiting recommendations from the expense committee before posting their receipts. No one is implying any wrongdoing on their part, but they are following when they could be leading.
Complete transparency with parliamentary expense accounts is good preventive medicine. Knowing their constituents can watch how every penny is spent, MPs are more likely to be thrifty and less likely to spend $16 on, say, a glass of orange juice.
MPs鈥� expenses don鈥檛 constitute a major part of the national budget, but if we know they are frugal and efficient with thousands of dollars, we will be more confident in their ability to handle billions of dollars.
