As an elementary school student such a turn of events would have seemed unthinkable (except maybe as a perverse joke). Writing anything voluntarily, and certainly something intended for publication, I something that I assumed I would never do. While I am surely over emphasizing the significance of this event/occurrence, it is, nonetheless, neat to see something I wrote make it into print.
As I was walking to the newsstand to buy a copy of the paper (just to make sure it was actually in the print version of the paper) I realized that I have engaged in a public political debate, those mechanisms through which standards and norms in a democratic society are constructed and discussed. Until then I hadn't realized how much easier and safer it felt on the sidelines, where I am unlikely to ever really be called to account for my positions or statements (nor do I likely have to worry that I might accused of libel or slander in the safety of my apartment).
Also, for those purists out there, here is the original, unedited version of the thing that I keep going on and on about.
In 2006 in Newfoundland and Labrador a relatively widespread constituency allowance spending scandal was uncovered by the Auditor General of that province. In addition to outright fraud (which has lead to several criminal convictions) a number of types of inappropriate expenditures were uncovered and documented. In the months following the publication of the Auditor General’s findings a number of modified spending and accountability rules were implemented to more clearly define and limit the types of items and expenses for which constituency allowances could be used and the terms under which payment would be made.
In the past few days it has become known that Nova Scotia’s Auditor General uncovered a series of expenditures made by MLA’s that he deems in ‘inappropriate.’ In some cases MLAs had such things as generators installed in their homes, in others they may have double-billed the province (and then been double-paid) for otherwise acceptable expenses. As a consequence of these findings it seems that the House of Assembly has recently appointed a former Speaker Arthur R. Donahoe to examine the regulatory framework and make recommendations as to how the constituency allowance system might be improved in terms of both effectiveness and accountability.
What is surprising about this situation is not that the Auditor General has found legislators taking full advantage of their accessible and minimally regulated constituency allowances (this seems to be a problem that is somewhat common to legislatures), rather, what is remarkable is that the Nova Scotia legislature did not take the time to examine and modify their constituency allowance regime when serious problems cropped up in a neighbouring province. The Newfoundland and Labrador experience should have been a signal to almost every provincial legislature in Canada to re-evaluate their constituency spending practices and determine if the regulatory regime was adequate and corresponded to public standards of propriety (an area in which the current regime seems to fall short).
In many other jurisdictions and, now apparently, Nova Scotia, only when legislators have been caught behaving inappropriately (or as so perceived by the public) have they acted to implement more stringent regulatory regimes. This type of policy making is reactive rather than proactive, This standard is unacceptable in an era of fast and easy information transmission. Like the recent Auditor General’s report, the resulting reports and recommendations stemming from the Newfoundland and Labrador constituency allowance scandal were online and freely and easily available to all interested parties. While it is not reasonable to suggest that the Nova Scotia legislature wholeheartedly adopt the recommendations of Newfoundland and Labrador’s Green Commission, it does seem reasonable to expect that the report would have at least triggered an internal review and changes of the way constituency allowances were handled in Nova Scotia, if only of a self-interested desire to avoid the risk of a similar scandal in the Nova Scotia legislature.
These discoveries, like those in Newfoundland and Labrador, if nothing else, should serve as a wake-up call to those provinces and jurisdictions that have not recently evaluated their constituency allowance regimes. In the three and a half years time we should not hear about legislator’s ‘inappropriate’ expenditures in another province, other provinces should learn from the mistakes and solutions of provinces like Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia.
Blog-off Score
Neil: 0
Cameron: 15
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