Local AG office should not be top priority: Expert
Posted November 27, 2011 8:31 am.
This article is more than 5 years old.
SURREY (NEWS1130) – As we heard earlier this week, BC is introducing a new Office of the Auditor General for Local Government that will be located in Surrey.
But one local political science and urban studies professor believes this shouldn’t be at the top of the province’s priority list.
“It’s not a bad thing, but I don’t think it was the most necessary thing in terms of fixing up some of the challenges that local governments have,” says Patrick Smith with Simon Fraser University. “I don’t think a municipal auditor general would hurt, it might even help in a few instances, but I don’t think it’s the biggest priority at all.”
He says there are other, more important issues to fix first.
“The province is also sitting on recommendations from a local government elections task force. The past premier, Gordon Campbell, had promised when he set it up that we would have things fixed in time for this past election that was just held on Saturday; but it didn’t get done.”
Smith also points to another top-of-mind issue that needs addressing first.
“What we need maybe more than a municipal auditor general is a municipal registrar of lobbyists. We now have a lobbyist registration office for the Province of British Columbia, and I think that is a good thing and a needed thing, but we don’t have the equivalent at a municipal level.”
