The Record, Tuesday July 15, 2008
http://news.therecord.com/article/383454
The city of Kitchener is looking into introducing new appointments to make its council more transparent with regards to donations as well as deal with citizens who have a grievance and keep the public aware of what is going on. They have been looking into changes since there were changes in the Ontario Municipal Act.
Mayor Carl Zehr believes that all 6 positions are not necessary due to the size of the city. He suggests that instead they only hire an integrity commissioner who works for a stipend and would only investigate specific complaints. This is a start but only a very basic one. I mean really, if there is enough of a problem, or even a perceived problem to have an integrity commissioner in the first place shouldn’t they not only investigate specifics but also nip it in the bud and find and fix the problems before they happen or get worse? Why settle for damage control when you can be preventative?
Another part of the transparency vote is about declaring gifts and favours. This part of the debate deals with how large a gift/favour has to be before it is necessary to declare. Some people feel like the proposed amounts of less that $500 at one time and less them $5000 a year isn’t good enough. It doesn’t really sound like a lot of money when you think of the large budget that councilors need to run the city but shouldn’t all gifts/favours be declared? I mean, again, if you are going to care at all why are you only caring a little bit or only about certain things?
I know that it would be a lot of extra paper work and therefore extra money needed for supplies and wages but if councilors are actually interested in keeping the public informed and appearing accountable then it has to do more than just pretend. The whole reason behind declaring any gift/favour is so that people can see if some people or organizations are giving quite a bit and possibly getting preferential treatment. If you want to get around the rules there will always be a way, however, if I can think of an easy way off the top of my head to get around the proposed rules such as giving just under $500 in different names then councilors should probably try and make it a little bit more difficult than that. If all donations had to be declared it would be much easier to find out who is trying to get through these loopholes and put a stop to it.
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2 comments:
Governments need to be transparent. Look at the governments all over the world. All you seem to read about is how much corruption there is.
Governments are elected by the people and therefore need to be accountable to the people. Of course they should be transparent!
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