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The CBC has refused – as usual – to disclose the expenses of eco-advocacy tycoon David Suzuki. The Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) filed an Access to Information (ATI) request for the business expenses of Dr. Suzuki with the intention of examining his billing taxpayers for entertainment, hospitality, receptions and travel. By refusing to disclose even a single spending item in its 83 pages of redacted documents, the CBC has shielded him from public accountability.

More importantly than accountability for Dr. Suzuki’s expenses on the public dime is the continued refusal of the CBC to disclose information that the public has a right to.

In November of last year, the CBC lost its final court battle to keep itself effectively exempt from the Access to Information Act. After that decisive and unanimous ruling, the CBC vowed to respect the Act and to allow the Information Commissioner to be the arbiter in cases of dispute (of which the CTF has a few).

Until then, the CBC used a ‘generous’ interpretation of Section 68.1 of the ATI Act to shield itself from virtually any public accountability. This section protects documents from release that “relate to its journalistic, creative or programming activities.” The Federal Court of Appeal also ruled that while this clause “is not, shall we say, a model of clarity,” it does not give them a blanket exemption from accountability.

Among the many exemptions claimed by the CBC was – as expected – Section 68.1. How the public knowing about how much David Suzuki spends (hypothetically) on dinners compromises the “journalistic, creative or programming activities” of the CBC is beyond us. We weren’t asking to know what Dr. Suzuki’s carbon footprint is from flying around the world, but how much he billed taxpayers for doing it.

Unfortunately, it seems that while the CBC has buckled at least somewhat after its defeat in the Federal Court of Appeal, it has not yet embraced the ruling culturally.

The CTF has filed an appeal with the Information Commissioner to force the CBC to disclose the documents.

While we’re at it, maybe we should find out what his carbon footprint is.

It’s time for a math lesson for MPs disputing the CTF’s calculation of their platinum-plated pensions. When we released our Report on MP Pensions a few weeks ago, more than a few MPs were a little upset with us. But rather than defend the pension plan on its own merits (not an easy task), some decided to do what politicians do, and cast aspersions on our figures instead.

Now, we produced two pension calculations and two severance calculations for 307 MPs, meaning that we made a total of 1,228 calculations. Somewhere in there, I’m sure there has got to be an Excel column linked incorrectly, or a date wrong, but for the most part, it’s iron-clad.

Leading the charge to blunt our attack on MP pensions has been the NDP’s Justice Critic, Joe Comartin. He has often been quoted as “disputing” our numbers, but has never once actually supplied a shred of evidence to back his claim. Not once has he ever actually pointed to a single number that is wrong.

That should actually be an easy task, because the vast majority of our calculations were low-balled. If there is anything wrong with our numbers, it is that they downplay how generous they are.

Let me hold Joe’s hand as we walk through the math of his own pension (for details on the formula, go to page 9 of the CTF Report on MP Pensions).

MPs accrue 3% of pensionable service for each year served. From the time of Joe’s first election in November 2000 until the next scheduled election in October 2015, that works out to 37.4%. He has also been the NDP’s Deputy House Leader from 2006 until 2010, as well as a Committee Vice Chair from 2006 until 2007. This adds an extra 0.7% to his total. Together, that gives Joe 38.1% of his salary.

That 38.1% is now multiplied by the average of his best five years salary. To make our figures ‘conservative’ for all MPs, we used the current salary of $157,731, and did not index it upwards, as it will inevitably increase.

Therefore 38.1% of $157,731 is $60,024.

For the 2019 election, he would be up to 50.1%. Salaries would surely be significantly higher by 2019, but again we lowballed the figures by using the current salary.

Therefore 50.1% of $157,731 is $78,965.

Mr. Comartin’s calculations are particularly conservative, as we actually left out that he is currently the House Leader for the Official Opposition.

If there is any error in our report, it is that we were too cautious and under reported how far-out these pensions truly are.

So the Friends of Canadian Broadcasting (let’s just call them ‘Friends’) are a little upset with us for upturning some of their financial dealings with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC). We sort of expected that.

In their response we were delighted to read that contrary what we had been told by the CBC, “All members of the Friends’ Steering Committee gave explicit written permission to the CBC to release the requested information.”

This new information made our day, as we therefore expect the CBC to provide us with the 85 redacted pages from the Access to Information (ATI) documents.

We were quick to get on the phone with the CBC’s ATI department today to find out if we had been incorrectly informed, or to find out when we can receive the redacted information.

The CBC assured us that, “Names not included in the received documents did not give clear consent for disclosure.” In short, the CBC required explicit consent to disclose these people’s financial dealings, and did not receive it from everyone, contrary to what our Friends said. At least, the CBC doesn’t think that it did.

In short, somebody has some splainin’ to do. There are therefore three foreseen possibilities:

1)   As Friends claim, they all did give consent, but the CBC lost the letters and will provide us with the 85 pages that are currently redacted;

2)   As Friends’ claim, they all did give consent, but four of the letters were simultaneously lost in the mail. They can easily reprint the letters and send them to the CBC so that they can provide us with the information that is currently blanked-out; or

3)   If in fact consent was not given – which would be somewhat at odds with statements on the Friends’ website – then they surely won’t want to be spreading terminological inexactitudes and will wish to rectify this. That would happen by either explaining why they continue to refuse consent, or rectify this by finally giving it.

When we asked the CBC about the one sample letter of consent provided by the Friends, the CBC responded that there was confusion surrounding another Ian Morrison by the same name, and promised to promptly investigate the matter.

We really hate to come between friends, but we love Access to Information. The CBC and the Friends of Canadian Broadcasting need to work this consent thing out and provide the missing 85 pages.