What you need to know about the secretive committee that oversees MPs’ expenses

Share

Politics Insider delivers premium analysis and access to Canada's policymakers and politicians. Visit the Politics Insider homepage for insight available only to subscribers.

Under fire over expenses, political parties are racing to be perceived as the most open and transparent.

Senate expenses – which are already online – are heading to the Auditor-General and some are being looked at by the RCMP. There is talk of disclosing greater detail when it comes to the expenses of MPs.

But the next target is the highly-secretive Board of Internal Economy, a group of Conservative, NDP and Liberal MPs that controls all spending in the House of Commons yet has persistently resisted calls to come out of the shadows.

Treasury Board President Tony Clement threw the Board into the mix recently as he pledged government support to post detailed MP expenses online.

"A lot of new ideas [are] rolling around the last few days and I just wanted to express on behalf of the Prime Minister and our caucus our view that we are absolutely in favour of any measures that would have the same kind of expenses accountability that currently exists for ministers to be expanded to all MPs," he told reporters on June 5. "And we also have no difficulty opening up the Board of Internal Economy. Of course that is done by all-party agreement at the Board but we have no objection to that either."

What is the Board of Internal Economy?

The board is a group of MPs chaired by House Speaker Andrew Scheer that includes three other Conservative MPs, two NDP MPs and one Liberal MP. All House of Commons spending – worth $427-million annually – is approved by the board, as are all of the details such as the policies for photocopying and the amount of money that should be spent on security.

The Board "has the exclusive authority to determine whether expenditures are proper and in accordance with the bylaws, policies and guidelines that have been established," according to the Parliamentary website.

How transparent is it?

The group is surprisingly secretive, given it's important responsibilities over the conduct of MPs and the expenditure of hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars. Its counterpart in the Senate, the committee on internal economy, budgets and administration recently held a rare public meeting when it made the decision to refer the issue of Senator Mike Duffy's expenses and his secret payment from the Prime Minister's former chief of staff Nigel Wright to the RCMP. But even before that, the Senate had the House beat in terms of transparency. The Senate body is an actual committee, which means the time and location of its meetings are posted in advance and the minutes are posted in a timely fashion. In contrast, the House board operates outside of the committee structure, meaning the date and time of its meetings are unknown.

It can take months for the minutes of the meetings to be released, and even then, they are not posted online. Instead, they are tabled in the House of Commons, meaning only people with access to the Library of Parliament can request copies. The minutes themselves are extremely vague. (There is talk that the board is working on posting more information online.)

What do they discuss?

Security is a big topic that has dogged the board for years. Parliament Hill has a complex system in which the House and the Senate each have their own security team, even though they share key buildings such as Centre Block. Complicating matters further, security on the grounds of Parliament Hill is the responsibility of the RCMP.

Another regular topic for debate is legal fees. Members of Parliament regularly face legal action – sometimes from their own employees. The board looks into each case and decides whether taxpayers should cover the legal costs.

Finally, just as all departments are being asked to cut back, so too is Parliament. Board members have been taking a close look at the expenses rules, making tweaks to policies such as when MPs can expense a business-class plane ticket (when the flight is longer than two hours.)

Is the board really going to open up?

It doesn't look like it. Mr. Clement's comments on "opening up the Board of Internal Economy" appeared to catch members of the board off guard. It's important to note that Mr. Clement is not a member. The senior Conservative on the board – Government Whip Gordon O'Connor – recently defended keeping board discussions private. What appears most likely is that the board will look into ways of posting more detail about MPs' expenses.

NDP House Leader Nathan Cullen said the subject matter of the meetings – security and legal matters – simply must be dealt with in private. Mr. Cullen, a member of the board, made clear he didn't appreciate last week's comments from Mr. Clement and Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau about posting more information online.

"As much as possible, we want things open. But I do worry about people freelancing on this thing, because it becomes like a bidding war or something," he said. "We could very easily create something that doesn't work and doesn't save any money, doesn't actually make anything more transparent."

Bill Curry covers finance in Ottawa.