An exciting development has taken place for those interested in accountability in government departments: http://www.governmentexpenses.ca/
The idea was inspired by a MacLeans article about how federal travel and hospitality budget data is available, but hard to access because it is scattered across innumerable line items across hundreds of government sites and thousands of pages. A programmer decided to write a crawler to scan through the pages and consolidate the data for reporting purposes. A ton of work has borne fruit as already 20 departments have been processed with more to come.
The programmer wrote the CTF to say of his website, "My hope is that it will spread awareness of government spending, and maybe help to reduce any excesses, which would surely have a positive effect on the economy and maybe even contribute to helping bring us out of this recession."
A noble goal to be sure. A sneak peak follows below of the top spenders since 2003:
| Member Name | Department | Title | Total Amount | Number of Expenses |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Monique Collette | Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency | President | $570,458.73 | 607 |
| Joseph Caron | Foreign Affairs Canada | High Commissioner, India (New Delhi) | $562,462.58 | 1121 |
| Paul Mills | Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency | Vice-President, Newfoundland and Labrador | $553,986.52 | 198 |
| Marc Lortie | Foreign Affairs Canada | Ambassador, France (Paris) | $546,183.54 | 552 |
| Michel Gauthier | National Defence | Director General Intelligence | $503,168.33 | 237 |
Is Canada Off Track?
Canada has problems. You see them at gas station. You see them at the grocery store. You see them on your taxes.
Is anyone listening to you to find out where you think Canada’s off track and what you think we could do to make things better?
You can tell us what you think by filling out the survey