According to the most recent Report of Selected Payments to MLAs, Alberta taxpayers shelled out $142,488 in one year to six MLAs for chairing partisan policy committees on which only Progressive Conservative MLAs are allowed to serve.

In Alberta, Standing Policy Committees of Tory MLAs are responsible for examining and approving policies governing education, health care, finance, the environment, and all government programs. Occasionally these committees will hear presentations from interest groups in public view, but debate among MLAs - and the MLAs' votes on policy - are always conducted in secret. It's impossible for taxpayers to know what topics and policies a Tory MLA has voted on, and which way she or he voted.

But didn't Premier Klein's Progressive Conservatives just receive another mandate to continue governing Alberta

Yes, but a mandate to govern is not a mandate to govern in secret, hiding debates and votes from public view. With secrecy there is no accountability, because you never know what your MLA said - or failed to say - behind closed doors. Premier Klein's Tories have a mandate to govern in the legislature, in full public view. There is no mandate to continue making all major policy decisions in the secrecy of government caucus meetings and Tory-only standing policy committees.

A mandate to govern is not a mandate to exclude the majority of Albertans from participating in democracy. Most Albertans rejected Premier Klein's Tories, who still ended up with three quarters of the seats in the legislature thanks to a voting system which doesn't give Albertans what they voted for. In a democracy, people who voted for opposition parties -whether they are 53% of the population (as in Alberta) or a minority of the population - deserve to be represented. Opposition MLAs might lose every vote in the Legislature, but they should still have a right to participate in discussions about things that matter to taxpayers.

Whether the issue is taxes or health care or education or roads, a democracy allows input in policy-making from opposition members. At the end of the day, the government may use its majority to push its agenda through. But that should happen after MLAs from all parties, representing all Albertans, have had their say.

Alberta is the only jurisdiction in Canada where taxpayer-funded policy committees exclude opposition members. Even the federal Liberals in Ottawa allow opposition MPs to serve on policy committees, recognizing that not all Canadians voted for the government party.

Of course political parties can create their own internal committees as they see fit. Political parties might have their "rural caucus" or "environmental caucus" or "family issues caucus" in order to study and develop party policy. But taxpayers should not have to pay extra money to MLAs or MPs who serve on their own party's internal policy committees.

Albertans love to hate the federal Liberals. But when it comes to respecting the democratic process, Klein's Tories can learn a lesson from Ottawa, where policy committees have representation from all parties. If MLAs receive extra pay from taxpayers for committee work, it should only be for committees which include MLAs from all parties, in recognition of the fact that not all Albertans vote for the government party.