Federal Liberal leader Justin Trudeau is showing leadership on cleaning up the Senate expense scandal today. He’s moving away from some of the members of the old-boys club in the Senate Liberal caucus

Notably, Justin Trudeau is pushing for accountability, both from MPs and Senators. The government and the NDP opposition have been trying to keep the Senate expense scandal confined to the Senate, when they know full well that the same problems with disclosure apply to the House of Commons.

He is calling for detailed and proactive expense disclosure, with MPs and senators posting detailed quarterly financial reports online, in a format that allows members of the media and people like us to do number crunching.

He wants mandatory performance audits of Parliament by the Auditor General as well, and he wants the Commons Board of Internal Economy to meet in public, rather than secretly as it does now. These ideas make a great deal of sense. The other party leaders need to be asking themselves why they let the Liberal leader beat them to the punch.

The Canadian Taxpayers Federation has been advocating for MP expense reform for a long time. Our supporters have been bombarding MPs with demands for more openness and accountability.

Mr. Trudeau should continue to put pressure on the government and the holdouts in his own caucus to go all the way with disclosure – giving the media and the public access to all the paperwork – receipts and documentation, too discourage any temptation by politicians to work around the system somehow.

Mr. Trudeau should put pressure on the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition to bring in the Auditor General for a full forensic audit of MPs and senators, to give Parliament a clean bill of health, and uncover any funny business that hasn’t been revealed in media leaks.

We would also urge Mr. Trudeau to support the private member’s bill by New Brunswick Conservative John Williamson, that would revoke pension benefits for any MP or Senator convicted of a serious federal offence. Once passed into law, it would go discourage politicians from stepping over the line.

That said, Justin Trudeau is the first federal leader to announce concrete proposals to make Senators and MPs more accountable. Trudeau’s announcement is an important step in the right direction.