* Details from EPC members' $7,000 budgets released

* List of 'flagged' expenses released

* Could partisan event funding have violated provincial law?

WINNIPEG:  The Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) released freedom of information responses today on city council expenses and renewed its call for council to follow the City of Toronto's lead and put receipts of all expenses online.

“Watchdog groups such as ours, reporters and taxpayers shouldn't have to go on a scavenger hunt to find details on how council is spending tax dollars,” said CTF Manitoba director Colin Craig.  “Ultimately council reports to the taxpayers of Winnipeg so all of their expenses should be proactively disclosed to the public.The City of Toronto scans every receipt expensed by council and places them online.  The City of Winnipeg should do the same."

• Details of $7,000 budgets available to members of EPC which are currently not disclosed to the public (CLICK HERE for 2007 and HERE for 2008)
• A list of expenses that were 'flagged' for the secretariat committee (CLICK HERE)
• Expenses for a Liberal Party event and an NDP event (CLICK HERE)

Craig noted that according to the City of Winnipeg Act, the city is defined as a corporation and thus expenses for partisan events would contravene the provincial government's ban on corporate and union donations to provincial political parties.   

"A provincial law may have been broken ," added Craig.  "It probably was a mistake, but it shows that there needs to be more oversight of council expenses."

"Even with the information released today, we still only have about one-fifth of the details as to how council has been spending tax dollars.  Taxpayers need to call their councillors and urge them to reform the system so that all receipts are made public in the future," continued Craig.