BC government strangles Auditor Generals office while government credit card spending runs amok.

Posted on by Laila

With the recent and ongoing revelations over messy accounting in the legislature, excessive and highly questionable purchases on government credit cards – and the ensuing public outrage – it shouldn’t surprise you to discover that despite being asked for a one time vital increase to the Auditors budget this year,  the government actually cut his offices funding back to last years.. and that’s not all.

A travesty in light of the still unelected premiers campaign for bringing an open and accountable government to B.C. How accountable can it be when they intentionally cut the purse-strings of the only man capable, and willing of ensuring her promise is kept?

Dermod Travis, executive director of IntegrityBC, has the shocking details in this timely editorial. ( originally posted July 25th, at  http://www.integritybc.ca/?page_id=569 )

B.C.’s Auditor General short changed by government

It’s time to give B.C.’s Auditor General the necessary financial resources and tools to do the job, according to figures released by IntegrityBC today which compared the budget of B.C.’s Auditor General with that of his counterpart in Alberta.

For the fiscal year 2012-13, B.C.’s Auditor General has an annual budget of $15.75 million, compared to Alberta’s Auditor General with a budget of $25.65 million.

Despite this $10 million difference, B.C.’s Auditor General oversees a comparable government operating budget of $43.1 billion in projected revenue for the current fiscal year and expenses of $43.9 billion; while Alberta’s Auditor General oversees projected revenue of $40.3 billion and spending of $41.1 billion.

In fact, in its February budget, the B.C. government cut the Auditor General’s previously approved appropriation for 2012-13 to its 2011-12 level of $15.75 million, even though the Auditor General had requested a “one-time” funding increase of $643,000 to train staff in new accounting and auditing standards, to address office space deficiencies and to enhance the office’s online Audit Learning Network.

IntegrityBC noted that major audits and projects currently underway in the Auditor General’s office have further eroded his budget. One such file is the Auditor General’s court fight with the B.C. government over documents related to the government’s settlement with Dave Basi and Bob Virk over $6 million in legal fees related to their B.C. Rail trial where both men ultimately pleaded guilty.

“No one is well-served – neither B.C. taxpayers nor MLAs – when the Auditor General is kept on a tight fiscal leash,” said IntegrityBC executive director Dermod Travis. “As Auditor General John Doyle noted in his 2011-12 annual report to the Legislature: “We are a public-sector entity and, therefore, the amount of work we can produce is constrained by the funding we receive.”

“As an independent officer of the Legislature, the B.C. government should heed the Auditor General’s advise regarding his office’s funding needs,” said Travis.

IntegrityBC made its call for increased funding for the Auditor General, in the wake of yesterday’s decision by the Speaker of the Legislature Bill Barisoff to not immediately release an audit of MLA expenses submitted by the Auditor General John Doyle.

IntegrityBC has posted the Auditor General Act for both B.C. and Alberta to its website in PDF formats.

IntegrityBC is a non-partisan voice championing accountability and integrity in BC politics. By empowering British Columbians, IntegrityBC hopes to changes politics in BC and allow citizens to regain trust in our government.

 Isn’t that just rich?

This government refuses to cooperate with the auditor generals office, refuses to allow him access to information about finances, spending, the Bas-Virk deal, make him have to go so far as to actually take them to court in his quest for information… and then cut him off at the financial knees while he’s spending his budget trying to get them to just be accountable. Unfathomable even today, as we hear Falcon crowing loudly to justify government expenditures…

A good friend recently mentioned we should get rid of Clark, get rid of Dix and turn B.C. into the Republic of Doyle.

I’m starting to think that’s not such a bad idea after all.

14 thoughts on “BC government strangles Auditor Generals office while government credit card spending runs amok.”

  3. Apparently the “watch-dogs” are the very dogs we want in office, not those they watch (somehow, that just seems backasswards to me, but whatever, lol).
    Doyle, Turpel-Lafond, those are the ilk we want in government, not “DICKS” or Chrusty’s or “Harpalots”.

    I’ll back that play Laila!

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  5. Republic of Doyle. Has a nice ring to it & maybe we can get Russel Crowe to come by for a visit. Well he looks better than Falcon.

    Now as to Doyle’s stand on the pipeline. I would venture to say he would be against it after he has done the cost/benefits analysis and the probability anyalysis of spills, etc. Mr. Doyle seems to be a good accountant. Sometimes to save money you first spend a little. Now the lieberals haven’t figured that out yet. Then of course there is the long term financial decisions to be made. Do we have private/public partnerships. Most likely not. England started them during Thatcher’s reign & it has cost them money. They found there was no savings on building hospitals that way, it in fact cost them millions more.

    A good accountant certainly would not have B.C. Ferries paying 10%interest to the German banks when they could be spending only 3%. A good accoutant might sit down with knowledgeable people & decide it wasn’t good financial practice to keep having the highest rate of child poverty in Canada. That in the end we would spend more on health care, jails, police, etc.

    I expect a good accountant would get rid of the carbon tax for public entities. Our B.C. school boards, hospitals, etc. pay tens of thousands of dollars each yr. for carbon off sets. The provincial bank account doesn’t benefit. Only those companies who the school boards have to pay for their carbon off sets benefit. Yup, private companies, that is why some school boards can’t stay within their budgets. They have to pay carbon taxes.

    An auditor/accountant might also have a look at the medical system & do an analysis on whether having as many paper shufflers as patients in a hospital is doing anything for health care. An auditor/accountant might do an analysis on patient deaths due to dirty hospitals & having clean hospitals & people not dying of infections they picked up while in the hospital. Yes, hve the former cleaners come back & pay them their HEU rates & have them report to the hospital instead of somewhere else so things can be cleaned as they are needed, not on some schedule set up by a company wanting to make a profit. Having people dying in hospitals is expensive to society at large. Their distraught families aren’t as productive. Some of those who die will no longer be able to contribute to society.

    Yup, I’m willing to give it a try. Have the provincial government removed by the L. Govenor & let the auditor general run the province for awhile. I don’t things would get any worse & maybe he can get the child advocate to take over social services for children.

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  6. Hmmmmm, the Auditor general must bow and scrape to get “$643,000 in one time training” for staff.
    Perhaps we could ask for retired accountants to voluteer their time to train an army of auditors to bring these arrogant, unaccountable weasels back to reality!
    HELLO? MLA’s! You’re spending taxpayers money! Time for some accountablity you greedy pricks!

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  7. The audacity of the Campbell/Clark BC Liberals, even remotely thinking they can win the trust of the BC citizens, that isn’t even printable. Christy is the same kind of thief Campbell is, she even lies like Campbell does. As Campbell did, Christy is selling off the rest of BC. She also works for Harper, as Campbell did before her. Campbell thieved our tax dollars, so does Christy. She even thieved more than Campbell did. Nail salons, really? Fine wine and fine dining? $500.00 per night for luxury hotel suites? Bev Oda has nothing on the BC Liberals, when it comes to thieving money, for their own luxury. The Campbell/Clark BC Liberals, have been stealing from us, for over 11 years now. Nor, do we forget Harper’s part, in the thefts from the BC citizens.

    I don’t envy the Auditor General, trying to get the truth out of the, Christy Clark BC Liberals. As we know, getting any honesty out of the BC Liberals, is an exercise in futility. The Campbell/Clark BC Liberals, will keep on with their thieving, because we can’t bodily kick them off the planet.

    Win our trust?? Good luck with that Christy.

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    1. Could crissy clown not just tack a few $100,000.00 on her credit card maybe under Proctologic examination or such?
      As for the closet smoker does BC Bud count?

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        2. Here’s one definition for “closet smoker” Closet smoker is a term that describes a person who hides their smoking habit from others,

          On October 1, 2011, Jeff Lee, for the Vancouver Sun, wrote: “…….But less than 24 hours later Clark, who recently kicked the smoking habit after 17 years…….”

          Using a Google Search criteria of: CKNW Christy Clark marijuana

          Christy admits to smoking pot

          https://www.google.ca/search?q=CKNW+Christy+Clark+marijuana&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a

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  8. “Mothers Day Between Strangers” is your MOST popular Post as of August 8, 2012? Who did you piss off Laila? Oh, of course, it had to be those who are most concerned about just how badly they’ll be losing the election in May of 2013.

    You could take a sabbatical, let them stew in their own juices for a day or two, and then hit them again with more of the same.

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    1. Lol… indeed!! In fact I think I will be writing about how one young dedicated Liberal spent over 20 hours on the site, after perusing various posts from the last few years, and then methodically searched a specific term several thousand times…that brought that post to the top of the most read list.Subsequent to this activity, another dedicated young supporter was busy clicking on several other posts in an effort to knock off the most damaging posts from my “most popular” list on the sidebar.

      Imagine that. Someone who has so little of an outside his basement life, and whom believes in Clark and those Libs so much, they would spend over a day, working on moving those posts down the list… Well, sorry to tell them, those posts won’t be going anywhere, anytime soon.

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      1. Not wanting your visitors to actually go to a Young BC Liberal Website, and thereby pumping up their numbers, incorrectly, which might just fool the Angus Reid folks, but………… During the last Bye-Elections, one BC Liberal Candidate was asked by the Young BC Liberals to do a write-up, for future use, to encourage more young people to join the party, bc liberal party that is. It was posted mid June, 2012, after he had lost.

        The Candidate wrote: Make Your Mark On Your Tomorrow

        Snip…….”The little girl who answered the door was very cute, but when I asked to see her mom or dad, her mother came up to the door and, without a word, slammed it hard in my face. You see, mom was a teacher. Things didn’t always go so well on the doorstep during the campaign because of the teachers’ dispute. Understanding that tempers are running high, I still wondered what kind of an example she was setting for her daughter.” More: http://www.bcyl.ca/make_your_mark_on_your_tomorrow

        I think the parents did the right thing, closing the door. A teacher, in a school setting, would have sent the total stranger off to the School Office at once. In a home setting, a parent would have expected to be called beforehand and therefore the child would have known. They’ve told their daughter tons of times not to answer the front door, no matter how much of a smile the stranger has on his face. Besides, the candidate had already made up his mind how he was going to handle the conversation, knowing beforehand that the Constituent was a TEACHER. Maybe the “slamming” sound was a rejection by a majority of voters of anyone dressed in BC Liberals colours, eh.

        PS Laila, I need help with my readers’ Favourite Post reaching for the top for a solid month….. Christy Clark, a Closet Smoker? http://blogborgcollective.blogspot.ca/2011/10/christy-clark-closet-smoker-wheres.html

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