What are MP's hiding?

It’s almost the end of the month, and that means it’s time for me to submit monthly expenses.
There’s not much accrued on the expense account this month, other than mileage for a few weekend trips for sporting events.
Likewise, Courier reporters will soon report expenses to me. It’s a typical corporate chain-of-command process, hardly unique to this business.
Such a process ensures that I don’t frivolously spend loot the company doesn’t have to spend.
Hence, there are several layers of checks and balances: I check reporters’ expenses and send claims to the beancounters.
My expense claims must also undergo scrutiny. It’s hardly something I worry about.
After all, I’ve got nothing to hide. I haven’t balked about submitting an expense report since I got into this business – and that was a heckuva while back.
So why, then, did MPs balk at having the chief government beancounter examine their expenses?
One has to wonder, especially in wake of obvious misuses of political spending systems in Britain and Nova Scotia.
Of course the public mounted protest. After all, like me, most everyone has to answer to someone else.
Why should our MPs be any different?
I find it most interesting that the Conservatives, who gained power largely by decrying the lack of public scrutiny of Jean Chretien regime’s utter misuse of public money, would suddenly change their “we will be transparent if you elect us” theme to the one that’s been bounced around of late.
That the Liberals and NDP would close ranks and join the Tories in protesting Auditor General Sheila Fraser’s examination of expense accounts is, frankly, troublesome.
As a former daily crime reporter had written on a poster above his desk, “News is something somebody doesn’t want people to know. Everything else is propaganda.”
The very vehemence our elected officials protest scrutiny of their expenses suggests they’re hiding something.
And really, what’s wrong with a little scrutiny?
Fraser should be able to see every last penny our MPs spend.
And voters should be hard-pressed to support any MP that opposes such a move.
After all, if I have to answer to my bosses on a regular basis, MPs should answer to their bosses on a regular basis.
And just in case those elected members of parliament forget – as they sometimes do – who they work for, that would be us, the taxpayer.