If we are to accept that one MHA - Elizabeth Marshall - above all others was the catalyst for the Auditor General to gut the financial operations of the House of Assembly - and there's no shortage of people who would claim that to be true - then Elizabeth Marshall's constituency spending and accounting should be perfect.
Let's look at this MHA's record - as prepared by the AG - for three of the four years she has been in office.
Of 115 MHA's that served the people (yah right) over a 17 year period - almost 25% had no double billings. Their average years of service was about 5 years. Elizabeth Marshall double billed.
Despite that the current Auditor General John Noseworthy states and the former Auditor General Elizabeth Marshall should know - that alcohol only purchases are inappropriate and represented part of the concern then AG Marshall had with former Cabinet Minister Paul Dicks - Marshall managed to make alcohol only purchases in the few short years she has been sitting. This despite that fact that 50% of her colleagues did not.
When the $2875 special payment was given to the MHA's as a "top-up" of their constituency allowances - although the former AG did not take it - she did not make it public either and waited for the current AG to get his hands on it and report.
I would also like to know whether or not the donations made by Marshall over the past 4 years have in any number or amount been claimed on her personal income tax return. Given the amounts reported and averaged and working with the latest taxation information - Marshall could have benefited in access of $2000 per annum personally.
The question is - will she tell us?
Given the Member for Topsail has only been in office for 4 years - the bar set by this former AG is not very high.
6 comments:
Human beings being what we are, there are few who can resist the temptation of reaching into the cookie jar. It is not the individuals who are in need of chastisement as much as the system that not only permits, but frequently aids and abets this kind of activity. In this respect we all share the guilt since the government is a creature of our own making. In terms of connivery and demeaning activity, it would be hard to beat the government's "make-work" scheme as a means of providing topping-up jobs for EI eligibility and in that way being able to dump its social responsibility unto the lap of the federal government. Aren't we being a tad hypocritical by condoning our government's engagement in this kind of dishonesty while at the same time expecting higher standards from its individual membership . Auditor General Noseworthy has given us a glimpse of the extent to which the House needs cleaning, but, as has been said before, "you can't put new wine into old bottles". No pun intended.
They made the laws - changed the laws - private meetings - booted out the watchdog - frenzied when they could and pulled back when the were monitored. There are is no equivalent to an MHA MP - they make the laws.
Not very often one gets to set up their own temptation. As for Beth Marshall - her contempt of such actions as AG was part of the PC election campaign.
She bought booze and double billed.
How could all of our MHAs and MPS sit around while our resources were being lobbied right out of the province for some other province's benefit and for them not to have made a squeak? Also how could they have watched every other province getting all of the Ottawa goodies such as Federal Regional Offices, Military bases, and every other type of Federal structure that one can think of and also to have also stayed quiet? Were they blackmailed or something? Or was it that there were always patronage plums being dangled in front of their eyes for them to stay quiet, or you won't be part of whoever's generosity is on the go? Or really was it because they were all too inept, in other words too stunned to carry out their job as MHA or MP properly?
Then coupled with the fact that they stole from the public purse these men and women are not held with high esteem in my eyes. As far as I am concerned we could have done without them and fared better.
You are right , Sue. The alleged petty thievery of Ms. Marshall and the others is all the more obnoxious because there was no need for it other than their wanting to get their share of the easy booty. Ms. Marshall should certainly be able to afford to pay for her own booze. The point I'm trying to make is that supposing a stop is put to the pillaging of the public purse, not because politicians believe it is wrong, but because it is made more difficult for them to get their hands in the jar, then what do we have? A great many of the electorate are similarly guilty of abusing the system. In our present form of "democracy", it's wishful thinking, I believe, to imagine that we can ever have a government that is free of corruption, and so there will always be a need for voices like yours to insure some measure of restraint; otherwise it would be total chaos.
How could all of our MHAs and MPS sit around while our resources were being lobbied right out of the province for some other province's benefit and for them not to have made a squeak?
How do you "lobby" a resource away?
Who did this "lobbying"?
Bearing in mind that provincial resources are under the province's jurisdiction, what to MPs have to do with anything?
Which provinces "got" military bases lately? In your answer, you may wish to note that there are fewer bases now than there were 20 years ago, right across the board.
And regarding "federal offices", how many provinces have a larger federal civil service presence, given its population, than NL?
WJM you are not that inept in that you do not know the workings and dealings of lobbyists and how they work to influence and control the psyches of politicians, or are you WJM?
Of course it doesn't have to be a politician who is being lobbied, it could be just about anybody. From time to time most everybody will be lobbied on behalf of somebody to influence that person to direct something their way. It could be a small favor being lobbied for, as small as getting a date with some particular girl or boy, or it could be as large as a resource being lobbied for, for instance the Upper Churchill Hydro-electric energy project or the Voisey'sBay Nickel Project. We saw what happened there in both of those cases.
When politicians of this province allow themselves to be lobbied on our resources that result in the resource being exported out of this province for some other place's benefit, well I would file that under 'traitorism'. We have seen too much of that activity occur over the years that has caused this province to be filed under "have not" or a 'welfare' province. As a result, we, Newfoundlanders and Labradorians, are forever fighting off the prejudices of the other provinces over name-calling when the same provinces are benefitting from our resources.
One way of stopping that is for politicians to stop allowing themselves to become victims of lobbyists who influence them, into siding with them, and as a result other places acquiring ownership of our resources to benefit them in creating economies.
Politicians know it is morally wrong when we need our resources here to create economies here, so why do they allow it to happen?
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