Oh ... but wait a minute … it does actually make sense after all.

How can anyone think that a having new Municipal Auditor General (MAG), imposed on municipalities by the provincial government, will be anything more than a way to deflect from the BC Liberal governments own poor management of taxpayer resources???

Kamloops city councilor John DeCicco was quoted in a Kamloops Daily News story saying, "It's going to be given to us whether we like it or not. The resolution is to disagree, but for the UBCM executive to work with the province on it ... concerns we had ... costs for small municipalities ... shouldn't be a burden."

He also indicated another big sticking point with the whole concept and idea; the related costs for this new position, and the costs to do the audits.

"Who's going to pay for it? It starts from the province, but it goes down to you and I”

Here’s something I find equally interesting, as I believe it goes more to the real rationale of why this is bring proposed. 

The Kamloops Daily News story goes on to say that findings from the Municipal Auditor General will not be reported to the legislature … they will not be making binding recommendations ... and they will only be releasing findings to the media.

This whole idea didn’t make sense to start with --- and it makes even less sense now.

Oh ... but wait a minute … it does actually make sense after all.   

Increasing provincial deficits and debt by our current Liberal government means deflect --- deflect --- deflect.  It means deflect away from their own incompetence, ineffectiveness, ineptitude, and a whole lot of other “in” words. 

Right … that does make perfect sense now.

By contrast, here is the BC Conservative Party idea of managing taxpayer resources:

Every tax dollar collected from British Columbians is impressed with a trust.  This trust must be managed and accounted for according the highest of integrity and transparency.  The people’s scrutiny of all spending decisions should be encouraged and welcomed.

On September 16^th, Harvey Oberfeld said this in an editorial (Conservatives REALLY Frighten BC Liberals!) as he discussed the crazy Liberal attack ads on John Cummins and the BC Conservative Party:

“All the while Cummins and the Conservatives will continue to grow and build as an HONOURABLE free enterprise alternative to the NDP … and the Liberals.”

Harvey Oberfeld is right … that is exactly what John Cummins and the BC Conservative Party plan to do … it is exactly what they ARE DOING!

I'm Alan Forseth in Kamloops ... with the thoughts of one conservative on this round ball called planet earth.

Hey ... I'm back.  Since I wrote this piece earlier this morning, I came across the following from Vaughn Palmer in today's Vancouver Sun; Transparency hard to find in B.C.'s shoddy bookkeeping

The article said that Auditor-General John Doyle's latest verdict on the B.C. Liberal government's bookkeeping can be reduced to a single word: "Unacceptable" ... "for a government that strives for transparency and accountability, this is unacceptable."

He (John Doyle) went further and  ... cited the Liberals for a range of accounting errors, some major, some minor, some debatable, others falling under the heading of just plain wrong.

This article, by Vaughn Palmer, goes on to say:

The government reports a running tally in the fine print of the public accounts, a point noted here previously. It thereby meets the bare minimum requirements of public sector accounting standards, a point Doyle concedes. But he goes on to say that's not good enough to satisfy the broader public interest in accountability.

"The expected payment streams associated with these obligations directly impact the remaining amount of discretionary funds available to government to meet future needs," wrote Doyle, as he urged the government to disclose considerably more detail to help taxpayers better understand the multi-billion-dollar commitments being undertaken in their name.

A friend of mine, with membership in NO political parties, made the following comment on seeing and reading this ... “Pretty strong statements about a government that wants to impose an auditor on municipalities. Maybe the provincial government thinks all levels of government in B.C. function as ineptly as they do themselves.”

I'd have to agree!