I will do that. Thank you.
Several organizations, such as Canadians for Tax Fairness and Transparency International, have called on the government to take additional steps to strengthen accountability and transparency, such as by publishing details on “what specific businesses and organizations receive in different forms of federal support and for what purposes during both the emergency and recovery phases.”
They want publishing details on “COVID-19 procurement and other contracts during the emergency and recovery periods, building on the good practices learned from the Open Contracting Data Standard, as other countries have done.”
They are calling for the strengthening of whistle-blower protections for “workers in the public, para-public and private sectors, following recently issued recommendations by the House of Commons Standing Committee on Government Operations” to ensure that “employees in the public and private sectors have the freedom and protection to publicly warn about public health, misuse of public funds and other concerns.”
The last point they raise is about increasing “resources for monitoring, auditing, evaluation, enforcement and prosecution including additional funding for oversight agencies like the Auditor General, the Parliamentary Budget Officer, Treasury Board and for auditor and financial controllers in the affected departments.”
Can you comment on the importance of implementing these measures to ensure that public money is being spent and tracked in a transparent and accountable manner?