NDP: Liberals Must Strengthen Financial Accountability on $7 Billion of Spending

OTTAWA – Today, NDP Treasury Board Critic Daniel Blaikie will serve notice of over 200 motions at the Government Operations and Estimates committee; one for each questionable item in Treasury Board Vote 40. The new and unprecedented mechanism, usually referred to as “Vote 40”, would grant over $7 billion to the government for new spending without meaningful parliamentary oversight.

“Canadians expect the government to be accountable to their elected representatives. It’s one of the longest-standing principles of our democracy,” said Blaikie. “Vote 40 exhibits a total contempt for Parliament by trying to dodge parliamentary oversight, just as the recent decision to buy a pipeline for billions of dollars without consulting Parliament shows disdain for accountability.”

Blaikie has tried a number of ways to bring attention to Vote 40 and have Parliament evaluate its repercussions, including writing to the President of the Treasury Board, following up with the Prime Minister in Question Period, appealing to the Speaker for an Emergency debate, and raising several points of order to argue that the Speaker should delete Vote 40 from the estimates altogether.

“Vote 40 seeks to dodge real accountability in Parliament. I am using every tool at my disposal to expose this new and unprecedented mechanism as an abuse of the public purse.” said Blaikie.