Taxpayers deserve proof of how politicians spend their money

Canadians deserve to know how their money is spent. Politicians must end the secrecy and show every receipt, every time

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Taxpayers pay the bills for politicians’ expenses and they deserve to see the receipts.

Right now, in Manitoba, cabinet ministers and the premier post quarterly expense statements online. These statements show the purpose of the trip and the total spent in several broad categories like “airfare” and “accommodation, meals and phone calls.”

What the statements don’t show are the itemized receipts. That’s a problem for taxpayers trying to keep the government accountable.

Taxpayers foot the bill for these trips, so transparency helps ensure public money is being spent responsibly, not frivolously. Taxpayers aren’t asking for much: just the truth, with a receipt attached.

For example, Manitoba Premier Wab Kinew, who leads the province’s NDP government, took a trip to Washington, D.C., in February. That trip cost taxpayers $4,051. The costs were broken down as $1,481 in airfare, $2,450 in accommodation, meals and phone calls, and $120 in other transportation.

Now, these could be completely justifiable expenses. Travelling costs money. But without the receipts, taxpayers have no way of knowing whether Kinew was purchasing a meal from the local diner or splurging taxpayer cash on caviar.

And that’s just his personal tab. The expenses of staff he brought on the trip aren’t disclosed publicly at all.

Families Minister Nahanni Fontaine went on a trip last March and the expense release form showed the trip cost taxpayers $6,649. But details dug up by the Canadian Press through freedom-of-information (FOI) requests, which allow the public to access internal government documents, show that the total cost of the trip, including staff, was $23,105.

That highlights the core issue: the only way for a taxpayer or a journalist to access the fine details and expenses of accompanying staff is to send in an FOI request to the government.

That means potentially waiting more than a month for the information and being hit with fees to get information that taxpayers should be able to see for free.

In Alberta, if a politician or senior official spends more than $100 of taxpayers’ money, they have to provide an itemized receipt that’s posted online for all to see. It’s the gold standard in expense transparency in Canada.

This summer, the Alberta government quietly tried to dump its longstanding policy of proactively posting expense receipts online. That was a mistake. After outrage from taxpayers, the government reversed the decision and restored the receipt transparency.

Alberta NDP Leader Naheed Nenshi said reversing the decision is a “no-brainer.”

If Alberta can do it, there’s no excuse for Manitoba to lag behind. Taxpayers there deserve the same level of transparency for both politicians and senior officials.

It helps taxpayers hold politicians accountable, and it stops politicians from wasting money in the first place because they know they will have to post the receipts and defend their choices. Sunlight is the best disinfectant.

This level of transparency would have helped Manitobans get clearer answers in the past. Former premier Brian Pallister took two trips to Ottawa with some questionable expenses in 2021. He spent $1,300 on the category of “other transportation.” At that time, Kinew said: “It certainly raises questions as to what that $1,300 was spent on.” That was the right question for Kinew to ask, and having access to the receipts would have made it easier to hold Pallister to account.

At the time, a spokesperson for Pallister said “other transportation” could include car rentals, travel agent fees or taxi cabs, essentially anything that isn’t airfare. But that’s not clear enough for taxpayers. It doesn’t tell them if he rented a Corvette or a Corolla.

The NDP’s 2023 election platform declared that “a Manitoba NDP government will strengthen democracy in Manitoba by promoting transparency and accountability.”

Kinew didn’t start off on the right foot after becoming premier. He failed to post the required expenses for about the first year of his government, despite repeated calls to do so.

After finally posting the receipts, Kinew said he would look at including staff and bureaucrat travel expenses in the proactive disclosures. That’s the right move. And it should also include itemized expenses.

Kinew promised transparency. Taxpayers shouldn’t have to file paperwork and pay fees just to get access to basic information about how governments spend their money.

That means showing the receipts.

Gage Haubrich is the Prairie Director for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.