The need for fiscal transparency, parliamentary oversight, and accountability

“Skipping a federal budget would have been a significant departure from convention while raising obvious questions about fiscal transparency, parliamentary oversight, and accountability,” observes Financial Post columnist and financial analyst Kim Moody. He reasons, “Transparency, oversight and accountability are not aspirational objectives. They are foundational to providing a responsible government. Trust in institutions will inevitably erode when public scrutiny is evaded.”

Moody argues that Canadians have a right to know how their money is being spent, parliament has a role to debate that spending, and the government has a duty to be transparent on its intentions to spend citizens’ money. This is the very essence of the parliamentary democracy that Canada has been guided by since inception, and the foundational principle of “no taxation without representation” established with the signing of the Magna Carta in 1215.

Therefore it is a significant matter when a government openly decla…