Post 109—Transparency Revisited

Happy and Unhappy

Transparency is once again an “in” topic.  On the one hand that makes me happy, for it seems governments and their agencies at all levels constantly need to be pushed towards transparency.  So I’m happy that people keep pushing it. On the other hand, it makes me unhappy, for why should governments and their agencies need constant pushing?  Why don’t they just be up front with how they spend the people’s money without being pushed, without needing laws to force them—and then still try to squeak by with all kinds of tricks, legal or otherwise? This makes me not only unhappy, but actually raving mad, angry, and every synonym along this line you can think of. Any official elected or appointed who resists transparency in my book does not deserve to continue in his/her post, let alone be re-elected or re-appointed. It should be the natural thing to do and done automatically without discussion. 

The Vancouver Situation

The latest local development took place in Vancouver’s City Hall last week. Opposition Councilor George Affleck put a motion to the Council asking that the Mayor disclose all of his expenses, including so-called discretionary funds, on a quarterly basis.  He wants the same for the councilors.

It’s a simple matter of yes or no, Affleck argues. Are you going to disclose or not? Why not? he asks. “Be transparent about it. If you think it’s what you need to operate your office, then what’s there to hide? Just let us know and justify it to us.”  Indeed, seems simple doesn’t it?  It should be, of course. On what basis can anyone refuse and still be trusted?  It should not take a motion  or a freedom of information request. It should be out there for anyone to access without any hindrances put in the way.  Alas.

It’s not that the Vancouver City Council does not practice any disclosure.  Most expenses by the councillors are disclosed quarterly, but not those of the Mayor’s office. Nevertheless, however the information was gained, the article discloses some of the Mayor’s spending. Mike Magee, the Mayor’s outgoing chief of staff, indicated that he had approved some of these expenditures and that “they all meet auditing scrutiny.”  I am more than happy to recognize that things are on the up and up. But still, why this hesitancy concerning full, regular and automatic disclosure?  It only arouses suspicion on the part of the tax payer—and the electorate is sure to remember at the crucial time.  (See Matt Robinson, “Councillor pushing mayor to disclose all office expenses,” Vancouver Sun [VS] of April 29, 2016.) 

Fortunately, it turns out that the Mayor is backing Affleck’s motion. He claims pretty well every expenditure is already reported and publicly available. Affleck’s motion will bring “an added layer of transparency to City Hall,” he said.  In spite of this mayoral explanation, “It took a protracted effort by a local journalist to obtain those records under Freedom of Information rules.”  (Anonymous Brief in VS, April 30, 2016, p. A10). I would expect that with this kind of mayoral support, such information will from now on be readily available to anyone. That would be an unusual situation. Maybe the Vancouver City Council will one of these days be featured in Guinness’ Book of World Records? In view of the Mayor’s almost childish eagerness to have Vancouver recognized as a “world-class” city and his strenuous efforts in that direction, one could argue he deserves it.

Now the above issue is mostly, it seems, one of principle. Disclosure is just the right thing to do. There is no indication of massive corruption in Vancouver. I for one, deeply appreciate that. Although I do wonder sometimes about corruption in the relationship between the City Council and Councilors on the one hand and developers on the other hand, but that's another, though related, issue.

The Quebec Situation

But there are other and larger issues of disclosure in other structures in the country where it is more serious, where it is not merely a matter of principle but of resistance to disclosure because of massive fraud. Of course, this has long been a serious problem in the province of Quebec, but I have not followed that very closely. It’s so far removed geographically from where I live here on the West Coast, even though I know that indirectly that affects me also by way of Federal transfers to the provinces of huge sums of money. But in spite of Quebec’s massive fraud, the average citizen there still lives a fairly comfortable life. Brian Lee Crowley, author of the Canadian game changing book Fearful Symmetry, asserts that “If Canada were removed from the equation, in 1953 Quebec’s income per person would have made it the second-richest society in the world after the United States” (p. 69)!  Now who would have ever thought that of our poor abused and mistreated Quebec. 

I suggested above that people will remember such issues at election time. But now I ask, “Will they really?  Michael Den Tandt is much more on top of these things than I am. Speaking of federal budgets, he writes bluntly, “Nobody cares.” He writes that “the most notable about…critical post-mortems of the Trudeau…first budget” is precisely that: “No one cares” (“Liberals hiding budget plans,” VS, April 8, 2016). 

Let’s sleep on that one and take it up from here in Post 110.