Accountability - it's a word that gets thrown out with little to no thought (at least by politicians) about what the word actually means. Webster's Dictionary defines accountability as an obligation or willingness to accept responsibility or to account for one's actions. So in a long laundry list of public expenditures our politicians are unaccountable for, we can add a few more - the $5 million cost overrun for the Provencher Foot Bridge and 4500 new employees working for the province.

First, the Provencher Foot Bridge, or as it has been recently named, Esplanade Riel. This "infrastructure project" is becoming the bane of taxpayers' existence. There are some people in our community that believe this project was "reasonably done" read: Councilor John Angus, but there are others left scratching their heads and wondering is $5 million reasonable Putting this into perspective for a moment, if this was a private sector venture and a business had been handed a multi-million dollar tab for cost overruns, there would've been consequences. But not in our nanny state - politicians are all too willing to open up the public purse and start doling out our cash, with little to no repercussions.

City Hall's sycophant for the Public Works Department attempted to brush this off with the vigor of a seasoned politician offering up 'the end justifies the means' type of platitude. At a time when City Hall is telling the public to tighten our belts, they continue to keep their spending taps open. In the final analysis, no one at City Hall will be held accountable, no one will be brought in front of the firing squad, and no one will lose his or her job. Why Because it's our money they're spending and they simply don't give a damn.

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Have you heard the one about the 4500 employees now working for the province, but no one knows where they work or what they do Well don't ask the Minister of Finance the answer to that riddle because he doesn't know.

According to StatsCan, since 1999, the province's public sector has increased with 4500 more employees being added to the payroll - that does not include doctors and teachers. It does however include nurses, but according to government spinners, there are only 336 more nurses working today than there were four years ago. So where are the other 4164 people working At a tab of $2.6 billion annually for all provincial public sector wages and salaries, it is a pretty hefty price not to know where the jobs are.

If you're still scratching your head and wondering how they get away with it, it's time to look in the mirror.

Manitoba's democratic deficit isn't confined to the Legislature or City Hall, the real problem lies among citizens who leave the hard work of shaping our province to others. Ask yourself this - when is the last time you penned a letter to the editor When is the last time you called into a talk show to question a politician on money they have squandered Most people are content to cast their ballot once every few years, attend a speech or luncheon and go about their lives and smile as governments tax us out of existence.

The irony here is that Manitobans are #1 when it comes to supporting charitable activities, service clubs and businesses go above and beyond, time and again. However this charitable ethos isn't transferred over to the democratic realm.

Just remember, politicians cannot fix our democratic deficit, only you can.