Liberals post latest round of expense claims
James Fitz-Morris | CBC News | Posted: June 13, 2014 6:04 PM | Last Updated: June 13, 2014
Following up on a promise from the leader, and a report by CBC, Liberals reveal MP expenses
Liberal members of Parliament posted their expenses Thursday afternoon — hours after the CBC reported on an apparent delay in the voluntary disclosures.
The exercise in transparency was launched last year by the Liberals at the height of the Senate spending scandal.
MP expenses fall outside the purview of the auditor general and are instead policed by the secretive Board of Internal Economy.
To get ahead of the issue, the Liberals started giving the public access to their expenses — a move that also put pressure on their political opponents to follow suit.
However, they seem to have soon discovered that was easier said than done.
On Wednesday, when asked why their expenses for the quarter that ended March 31, 2014, still hadn’t been posted, Liberal House leader Dominic LeBlanc admitted the logistics of the task were proving difficult for staffers to handle on top of their other duties.
"It's as timely as we can make it with the limited resources we have," LeBlanc said.
The expenses are found on the party's main website, and each individual MP's profile page.
Fortunately for the party, the Liberal gambit seems to have paid off. Last year, the House of Commons passed a unanimous motion so that all MPs will soon make their expenses public, a task that will be undertaken by the House of Commons, rather than individual MPs' staff.