Call to post leaders' expenses comes back to haunt Liberals
By: Rob Ferguson, Toronto Star
..."It's politics," said Conservative MPP Peter Shurman (Thornhill), calling the tactic "nonsense" from a government that promised up to $15 million for the Grace Health Centre on the eve of the Feb. 4 by-election in Toronto Centre
...Shurman said any request for the opposition parties to post their expenses should have come not at "the eleventh hour" but last fall with McGuinty's original announcement...
A government attempt to embarrass Ontario's opposition parties into posting their leaders' expenses online, along with cabinet ministers and senior bureaucrats, appears to have backfired.
The New Democrats and Progressive Conservatives quickly agreed to do so but said the Liberals should do more to get their own house in order given a spate of spending scandals and a list of agencies such as hospitals where public scrutiny remains restricted.
"We still don't have transparency in so many pieces of what this government does and we see it day in and day out," said NDP Leader Andrea Horwath.
"Really, the government's trying to deflect their own dismal failure."
Government Services Minister Harinder Takhar issued the challenge in a two-page letter Thursday morning just minutes before the Legislature's daily question period, prompting the Conservative and NDP to charge the Liberals were playing games.
"It's politics," said Conservative MPP Peter Shurman (Thornhill), calling the tactic "nonsense" from a government that promised up to $15 million for the Grace Health Centre on the eve of the Feb. 4 by-election in Toronto Centre.
Premier Dalton McGuinty pledged new rules last Sept. 14 to boost accountability and transparency in government after multi-million dollar spending scandals involving untendered contracts and questionable expenses at eHealth Ontario and the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corporation.
Under McGuinty's new rules, which take effect April 1, expense claims for all cabinet ministers, MPPs who are parliamentary assistants to ministers, senior management in the Ontario civil service will be posted online ? as will the expense claims of senior management in the 22 largest government agencies, such as eHealth.
Shurman said any request for the opposition parties to post their expenses should have come not at "the eleventh hour" but last fall with McGuinty's original announcement.
Takhar's challenge came after the opposition parties spent the last two days since the Legislature returned from its Christmas break hammering the government over untendered contracts at regional health agencies before the new policies against such deals took effect.
Takhar's letter noted that "online posting of expense claim information enhances transparency, helps maintain public confidence in public officials, and acts as a deterrent to inappropriate expense claims."
The NDP said the Liberals could boost transparency by no longer interfering politically with freedom-of-information requests, as was charged in last summer's Ontario Lottery scandal leading to the firing of chief executive Kelly McDougald, as well as giving Ontario Ombudsman Andr? Marin power to investigate municipalities, universities, schools and hospitals, and make hospitals subject to freedom-of-information legislation.