I noticed this item at about the same time I heard that Art Eggleton is linked to the "middleman" company that chartered the Antonovs for the DART deployment to Sri Lanka ... hmmm ...
(no wonder so many Member's of Parliament walk into jammy appointments when they "retire" ...)
http://www.canoe.ca/NewsStand/Columnists/Ottawa/Greg_Weston/2005/02/08/923659.html
Grits continue to hide billions
By Greg Weston -- Sun Ottawa Bureau, Tue, February 8, 2005
The next time Paul Martin proclaims how very, very committed he is to transparency and accountability in public spending -- watch for it ad nauseam when the PM appears at the Adscam inquiry later this week -- someone should whack him over the head with a copy of the auditor general's report.
It doesn't much matter which report.
Every year since 1996, the auditor general has pounded the Liberal government, over and over, for hiding billions of dollars of taxpayers' money in so-called "independent foundations."
Next week, Auditor General Sheila Fraser is expected to take another round out of the Martin government over the same issue in her latest compendium of government waste, mismanagement and general stupidity.
Good thing, too. At last count, Fraser tallied a staggering $9.1 billion of taxpayers' cash that the Liberals have stashed in foundations over the past eight years.
That's roughly the equivalent of about $1,000 from every taxpayer in the country. It is also far more than even the Liberals have been able to spend.
Fraser recently noted that even though the government publicly lists the money as having been spent, $7.7 billion is still in the foundations' bank accounts.
But most of all, the federal watchdog of public spending is rabid over the lack of anything resembling the transparency and accountability that taxpayers should reasonably expect.
The foundations are essentially fronts for government cheque-writing on a massive scale, providing handouts to all manner of no doubt worthy causes from garbage recycling to telemedicine.
But don't ask how it's disbursed or to whom.
The books of the foundations are conveniently exempted from the Access to Information Act, and are even off limits to the AG.
Unlike the usual flow of funds from the treasury, the government has simply filled the foundations' bank accounts and given them up to 10 years to spend it all.
But not to worry -- our money is in the good hands of foundation boards packed with qualified Liberal appointees.
As Fraser warned in one of her earlier reports: "I am concerned that these huge amounts of public money are provided up front to foundations when there is such a limited assurance of proper controls and accountability."
Last year, Finance Minister Ralph Goodale all but promised to open the foundations and their books to scrutiny. In an interview with me after the April 2004 budget, Goodale said without qualification: "I am perfectly willing and indeed very interested in having the auditor general review the foundations.
"The fact the auditor general is somehow limited in looking into them raises the spectre of concern, and therefore casts a cloud over what they're doing."
And finally: "I want to solve the issue of transparency and accountability."
But apparently a funny thing happened on the way to Fraser's office -- namely, not much at all.
Months after Goodale's published interview with me, Fraser was so alarmed by the billions still hidden from scrutiny in foundations that she refused to sign off on the government's annual accounts without adding a lengthy cautionary footnote.
The AG said she was "very concerned about the accountability and governance arrangements for these foundations.
"I urge the government to implement proper accountability structures."
Paging Paul: Please call your auditor general for an urgent message. It's not your money.