As a result of the Canadian Senate expense debacle that has been on-going - a number of provincial governments, Ottawa, the BC Legislature and 2 local governments in BC (Quesnel and Vancouver) have begun to proactively disclose their expense claims (travel/hospitality/meetings). In fact, a 2011 note from Stewart-McDannold-Stuart (law firm) advised their clients to implement proactive disclosure policies/practices of their records as a result of recommendations from Privacy Commissioners' across Canada - read more here
In the case of local governments in BC - Quesnel began to implement proactive disclosure of its' expense claim forms back in May of 2011 as a trial program and the current Quesnel Council has agreed to continue the practice. Since the beginning of 2015 - Quesnel Mayor Bob Simpson and Quesnel City Councillor Sushil Thapar have put in 2 expense claims while Quesnel City Councillor Laurey-Anne Roodenburg has put in one expense claim
View the monthly expense claims from Quesnel Council members here
In the case of Vancouver - they have made their quarterly expenses known for the 11 member City Council there since 2009. View that here
I have requested CRD Chair Al Richmond to add this item to the Cariboo Regional District's Strategic Planning Session to be held in May. If this item makes the Strategic Planning Session meeting agenda, I hope to convince my colleagues around the Board table that proactive disclosure, while respecting the Privacy Act requirements, of our expense claim forms is far better as a public policy initiative than making people jump through the FOI (Freedom of Information) process to get the same information which is already public. After all, if we are being reimbursed for legitimate expenses and they have been reviewed/signed off by local government staff, then we should not be afraid to discuss those approved expense claims with our constituents.
In fact, I already produce my own monthly expense report for my constituents in Area 'D' of the Cariboo Regional District to view and provide feedback to myself if those claimed expenses are appropriate or not, both here and on my "Steve Forseth - CRD Area D Director Facebook page". I am pleased to report that I have not received any negative feedback so far for any expense that I have claimed reimbursement for, in accordance with the provisions of Cariboo RD Bylaw #4862 (Directors' Remuneration and Expenses)
~SF
4 comments:
Thanks Steve,for opening this can of worms,My understanding is that W.L.City Council,under Mayor Cobb,has continued to suppress the release of ANY city docs under FOIPPA by demanding excessive fees to release info that would be embarrassing to City Hall.Just a back door way of deny the requests..To date the City has spent almost $50,000.on just one law firm to assist in their continued cover-up,Much of that total has been while Cobb has been Mayor..It looks like we elected another Mayor and Council giving us more of the "same old-same old.Corruption and cover up take on a life of it's own!
Taxpayer..I challenge you to bring one single credible shred of evidence that the City is surpressing anything. That is ILLEGAL and punishable by severe penalties. If you have evidence bring it forward and let the chips fall where they may. Be warned that evidence is NOT your opinion that the law is wrong. Evidence is NOT your interpretation of the law. FOIPPA requests have costs, these are regulated by LAW, and not liking these costs is NOT evidence.
Anonymous is obviously uninformed when it comes to matters with the city’s FOIPPA responses as well as their responsibilities under the FOIPPA Act wherein Section 75 (2) (a) allows that EACH individual response that takes less than three hours to process be responded to without charge.
So the current council passed a bylaw on January 2015, to charge fees for all requests, then proceeded to inflate the number of hours required to respond to outstanding requests, even if all that was required was a simple photocopy of a bank deposit book.
Plus, the city has hired lawyers Harris & Company who “specialize” in advising on how they can respond to (or not respond to) FOIPPA requests and almost $50,000 has been spent so far since August 2014 with no end in sight on how much will be spent to not answer FOIPPA requests or to make it fiscally impossible to receive answers to FOIPPA requests. My question is this: what is the purpose of paying these specialized lawyers if there is nothing to hide? If they had an open and transparent government, surely they would have released everything.
And so, we are back to what Steve was saying in the first place: if the City Council proactively disclosed their expense claims as recommended by the Privacy Commissioners across Canada, Taxpayers would not have to resort to FOIPPA requests to get answers to questions on how their tax dollars are spent. Plus the city would not be seen to be being secretive or manipulative when it comes to not wanting to respond to certain questions being asked. And there would be no need to hire expensive lawyers to worm their way out of answering questions that Taxpayers have the right to know but that might be “uncomfortable” for politicians and/or city officials if the information became known.
With regard to the City surpressing (sic) information, it is a matter of record that the city of Williams Lake failed to provide complete and/or accurate information in response to certain FOIPPA requests by claiming that information did not exist, or they had provided all records responsive to the request, or provided false information. When evidence was produced to the office of the information commissioner countering the city’s responses, the city was ordered to release additional information or forced to comply fully with the Act under penalty of the law.
One more thing, in response to your statement that FOIPAA requests have costs that are regulated by law, that is not accurate. The FOIPPA Act covers what the head of the public body must do regarding fees, but it does not regulate those costs and also allows for waiving of payment.
Now what are taxpayers to think about all of this? Legal/illegal is a fine line, depending on your stature in the community. And who pursues “severe penalties” against officials when they are walking the fine line? Taxpayer is right about City Hall – little has changed.
Taxpayer II
Well said, Taxpayer II
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