Yes, let’s sweat small stuff on MPs’ expense claims

Like most dads, I’m annoyed when I discover an empty room with the light on. Of course, when a forgetful child fails to flip a switch it costs only a fraction of a penny. So why do I let it get to me? It’s the principle of the matter. To me, it’s careless and inconsiderate to waste someone else’s money, no matter how small the amount. And I don’t want my kids to grow up to be wasteful.

Likewise, I don’t think the numbers matter when we see examples of members of Parliament being frivolous with taxpayers’ money. There are some, including the Globe

and Mail in an editorial, who argue we should devote our attention to major expenditures like infrastructure rather than sweat the small stuff, like recent controversies over limousines, airport lounges and photographers. But why not do both?

It’s not like the two matters aren’t related. An elected official who doesn’t show respect for taxpayers with a small expense isn’t likely to be more parsimonious when billions of dollars are at stake. We should demand value for money from major spending. But we should also expect a little respect from our elected officials when they are spending our money on their travel and personal branding.

The Globe seems to believe this is pettiness, even a preoccupation of denying leaders comforts of executive travel: “We have to stop demanding that our cabinet ministers book the middle seat in economy,” they wrote. Who, exactly, was demanding that?

True, it doesn’t cost taxpayers as much when a cabinet minister rents a car at double or triple the normal daily rate as when the government overspends on a bridge or highway. But symbolism is important.

To her credit, Health Minister Jane Philpott has offered to repay in full any questionable expenses. But Environment Minister Catherine McKenna took a different tone. She did promise to find ways to save money on photography. However, she said the hiring of a photographer for a climate change conference in Paris followed a long-standing practice that “was also used by the previous government.”

That may be true, but it’s never an acceptable defence to say the other guys did the same thing. It’s particularly insufficient when your party criticized it at the time and promised to do things differently. The issue should not be who’s the bigger hypocrite but who can do a better job of protecting the public interest.

And the threshold for responsible spending should never be whether it’s within the rules. A better test is whether an elected official would criticize the expenditure if it had been made by one of their opponents. Another is whether the people they represent would sign off on the expense if they had the option.

Unfortunately, while there are many parliamentarians who respect public money, there are a few too many who think of federal finances as a bottomless well. Wasting government funds isn’t a victimless crime; it hurts taxpayers and discredits the entire system. If integrity and good judgement won’t stop them, the only solution is fear of embarrassment that comes from transparency. As the Canadian Taxpayers Federation suggests, MPs’ and senators’ expenditures should be posted online for everyone to see.

But where is common sense? By now, no politician should need to be told how overpaying for a limo or a photographer will play. You wonder why they don’t ask themselves: do you really want to appear as the kind of person who thinks nothing of paying $16 of someone else’s money for a glass of orange juice?

Any government that doesn’t understand small expenditures matter as much as big ones will eventually receive the same message from taxpayers that I give my kids: turn off the lights on your way out.