AUDITOR GENERAL TO REVIEW TEACHER UNION PAYOUTS AS MACLEOD MOTION PASSES
QUEEN’S PARK – Nepean-Carleton MPP Lisa MacLeod’s motion requesting the Auditor General to review millions in payouts made to teachers’ unions from 2008 to the current year has been passed.
“With a sum of money this large going undocumented to public-sector unions who ran attack ads – it doesn’t look good,” MacLeod said last week after Question Period. “It will be important the Auditor General review those numbers and make sure the money wasn’t misappropriated.”
MacLeod called for the Auditor General to review and create a report focusing on where the money for the union payouts came from, what the money was intended to fund, and comparing the practice of paying union negotiating expenses was one found in other jurisdictions across Canada.
Having learned that a program to help struggling students graduate was cancelled at the same time $1 million was paid to unions, MacLeod asked the President of the Treasury Board, Deb Matthews, to “get that money back into the education system.”
A total of $3.74 million – that we know of – has been paid to unions by the Liberal Government to cover unions’ costs for negotiations. “Taxpayers and especially parents deserve to know what education programs this government had to divert money from in order to make these payments,” MacLeod added.
The Auditor General will present a report on the monies paid to bargaining units by Spring of 2016.