’Seriously, it’s not my money’

For those keeping score at home, Jack Layton says he’s not in favour of turning over the House of Commons books to the auditor general. Michelle Simson makes the case for doing so.

She said that if MPs are afraid to let Fraser look at their books, they can’t blame people for being suspicious. "Without that kind of scrutiny, I don’t think we’ll ever be able to successfully convince Canadians that what happened in Britain can’t happen here," Simson said...

Simson said the benefits of performance reviews and value-for-money audits go far beyond catching embarrassing spending from MPs, as the budget for the House of Commons and Senate is $533 million and every other branch of the public service is subject to Fraser’s audits. "When it’s combined, it’s a huge amount of money," Simson said. "And it’s one thing to make sure the columns add up. It’s a performance issue in terms of making sure that she could see a trend. She could see an economy of scale. She could see ways we could save money."