Two years ago (July 29, 2011, actually), I resigned my seat on Langley Township Council and took over as B.C. Director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. My first op/ed in my new role was on MLA expenses. From that piece:

BC Liberals and NDP MLAs don’t agree on much these days, but they are in lockstep when it comes to hiding their expenses from the public.

This reluctance to be transparent contradicts what is happening in democracies around the world. In England, political expense fraud sparked a total revamp of their system. In Nova Scotia, an audit found MLAs billing taxpayers for video games, hi-def TVs and espresso machines. This stopped when expenses began to be posted online. In Toronto, the gold standard for expense accountability, taxpayers can examine their local city councillor’s receipts, one-by-one.

But B.C. taxpayers are still waiting for their MLAs to follow suit--despite a spring 2010 promise that action would happen before that fall. The two parties continue to hide behind an all-party legislative committee, doing everything to prevent releasing detailed MLA expense reports. If you were holding your breath for true transparency, you've long since expired.

Since that piece, I’ve written several others, blogged, applauded the Auditor General when he ripped MLAs for hiding expenses, and basically kept beating the drum for proper expense accountability. And in the two years since, progress has been stupidly slow.

The new crop of MLAs have us hopeful that may change.

First, Green MLA Andrew Weaver has said he will disclose his expenses. From a Mike Smyth piece:

“I am absolutely committed to voluntarily disclosing my expenses,” said Andrew Weaver, the Greens’ first-ever MLA.

Weaver said he has already met with the legislature’s comptroller-general and made it clear he doesn’t want to be part of the secret society.

“My goal is to voluntarily disclose my MLA expenses on a regular basis through our website,” he said.

In other words, he is not going to await for the NDP-Liberal secret-spending club to finally keep its promises. He’s going to do it himself. “I would also like to see all MLAs do the same.”

Then Dan Ashton, the B.C. Liberal MLA for Penticton, sais he too would disclose expenses. From his July MLA report:

I would also like to announce that I intend to accept the challenge of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation to make monthly financial information for my constituency office expenses available to the public. My understanding is that the Legislature has also been working in this direction; however, as a newly-elected MLA, I believe I can fairly easily establish a monthly reporting system as part of my office operations. There are some privacy concerns, but I believe these can be addressed and I will also welcome feedback once the information is available. In Victoria I will be sharing staff and office resources with five other MLAs, and will be opting for the least costly of housing allowances that is available to all MLAs when in the capital region.

And the B.C. NDP is on board with this announcement:

Opposition MLAs will begin posting itemized travel and accommodation reports on a public website next month in an effort to improve accountability and pressure government MLAs to do the same.

NDP house leader John Horgan said it’s taking too long to reach a consensus with the Liberals on the joint release of MLA expenses.

So NDP politicians have advised Speaker Linda Reid that they plan to forge ahead alone. They intend to release their weekly expense claim forms dating back to July 1 and post them on the NDP caucus website. “We believe it’s past time to do that, and we’re not prepared to wait any longer for the government caucus to get behind this,” Horgan said. “We’re going to lead in this instance.”

We’re getting there. No one has gone to the Toronto or Alberta gold standard of posting receipts, but we’re finally making progress. Now it’s your turn, B.C. Liberals. Get on with it.