De Jong big on transparency

I missed Mike de Jong’s public meeting at TRU last night but enjoyed the opportunity to sit down with him in the morning, along with a number of other Daily News staffers.

Aside from what he said on all the current hot-button topics — HST, NDP leadership problems, and so on — I liked what he had to say about transparency in government on spending. Specifically, he wants to see mandatory disclosure of expenses by MLAs. Trying to find out what our MLAs spend money is impossible unless they happen to want to co-operate. An annual disclosure of expenses similar to what municipal politicians must file would suffice. City councils are constantly under scrutiny but MLAs seldom come under the magnifying glass.

Mind you, if MLA disclosure is anything like the supposedly transparent disclosure of Members of Parliament, it would be a waste of time.

De Jong also said he intends to disclose all contributions made to his leadership campaign. The way in which leadership campaigns are run is strictly up to party policy — there’s no legislation around it. De Jong says he’ll disclose contributions in a manner keeping with the B.C. Elections Act on election contributions.

But he hasn’t challenged other leadership candidates to do the same.