Stop Fraud Politician and Government Spending

Politicians across Canada are spending your money dishonestly, wastefully, and for themselves and their political parties!! But with your help they can be stopped!

Join the nation-wide call to stop fraud politician and government spending by sending your letter to key politicians across the country calling for stronger spending laws, stronger spending watchdogs, and higher penalties for fraud spenders.

The federal truth-in-spending watchdog Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO) is missing key powers, Ontario is the only province that has a watchdog like the PBO (called Ontario’s Financial Accountability Officer (FAO)), and across the country the Auditor General spending watchdogs are mostly toothless lapdogs.

Please send your letter now using the form on this page, and please help spread the word by Liking and Tweeting this page.

Every province and territory needs to establish a PBO-like office to examine and report on whether provincial, territorial and municipal budget and spending projections are accurate (other than Ontario which, again, has its FAO). And these watchdogs, and all Auditor Generals across Canada, must be chosen through a fully independent appointment process, and have full powers to examine all spending, and be given adequate funding and resources and required to examine all spending regularly, and be given the power to penalize anyone who breaks spending rules or misleads the public with false budget projections.

The key problems that the AGs across Canada, and the federal PBO and Ontario’s FAO, cannot currently prevent because of lack of independence, weak mandates, or lack of resources or powers, are as follows:

because AGs lack the funding, resources and mandate to audit all government spending regularly, government spending can violate rules for years before an AG finds out;
spending by most politicians on their office budgets can break every rule because such spending is not fully or regularly audited by an AG or anyone else;
government advertising can often be propaganda for the ruling party because no government in Canada has fully empowered its Auditor General to stop ruling-party boosting ads (Ontario’s government and the federal government both gutted the power of their AGs to stop partisan ads);
the federal government can easily thwart attempts by the PBO, and the Ontario government can thwart attempts by its FAO, to produce an accurate report on the actual cost of any government initiative, simply by refusing to provide, or delaying release of, key information;

The need for effective enforcement by AGs of government spending rules has been shown by every AG report ever issued, and the need in the politician spending area has been shown through many spending scandals over the past decade.

The enforcement of spending rules is also far from transparent in some jurisdictions, such as federally where cases are examined in secret, behind closed doors, by the Board of Internal Economy which is made up of politicians from all parties who protect themselves and their party members instead of enforcing the rules and ensuring that taxpayer money is not spent inappropriately.

The spending loopholes must be closed, and auditor generals across Canada required to audit all politician spending regularly and penalize violators, to prevent politicians from using taxpayers’ money to pay their personal or political party costs.

Please send your letter now calling on key politicians across Canada to stop fraud politician and government spending with stronger spending laws, stronger spending watchdogs, and higher penalties for fraud spenders.

Let’s stop them from lying to you about how they are spending your money, and stop them from using your money to pay their personal or political party costs!

And please help Democracy Watch keep this campaign alive until the loopholes are closed, and regular audits and high penalties required, to stop fraud spending by politicians across Canada – please donate now here.

Thank you very much!

Please send your letter now

Campaign News

DWatch wins unanimous Supreme Court ruling removing statutory barriers to challenging decisions of the federal Ethics Commissioner and similar tribunals across Canada

July 30, 2026 7:33AM

DWatch at Supreme Court this week vs. Ethics Commissioner’s ruling that ignored PM Trudeau’s violation in WE Charity grant approval

January 12, 2026 1:01AM

Many changes needed to make B.C. elections and political system actually democratic, honest, ethical, open and fair

July 17, 2025 7:45AM

Read all campaign news

92978 messages sent!

Send your letter to key politicians across Canada calling for stronger politician and government spending laws, stronger spending watchdogs, and higher penalties for fraud spenders!
(See list of politicians below)

Enter your details:

Message Subject (Please change as you like)

CAPTCHA

Not readable? Change text.

Your Message (Please change as you like)

Hello,

Dozens of politician and government spending scandals have happened in the past decade across Canada at the federal level and in provinces, territories, cities and towns. Politicians and government officials have been caught lying about spending billions of dollars, hiding spending, misspending or just plain wasting the public’s money, including spending your money on themselves, their family and friends, or to help their political party.

As well, dishonesty in government spending is rampant across Canada. The federal Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO) and Ontario’s Financial Accountability Officer (FAO) have revealed many cases of the Prime Minister, Ontario Premier and government Cabinet ministers making false claims about government spending and budgets.

But the PBO and FAO have also been stopped from doing their work by Cabinet ministers and government officials refusing to give them key spending information, and by cutting the funding and resources that they have to do their jobs.

I am calling on federal politicians to make the following key changes to strengthen the independence and powers of the Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO) in the following ways (and Ontario politicians to change the Financial Accountability Officer in the same ways), and I am calling on every provincial and territorial political party to work with other parties to establish a PBO with the following key structure:

the selection of the PBO as a full Officer of Parliament, independent of Cabinet, with a fixed, non-renewable term of office and full power over the selection and management of their staff, must be approved by a majority of party leaders after a public, merit-based nomination process to ensure a non-partisan and effective person is selected;
the PBO must be given the resources needed to fulfill their mandate each year (based on an independent needs assessment of their proposed budget);
the government must be required, before proposing significant spending, to check with the PBO to ensure that the actual total of the proposed spending is being accurately estimated;
the PBO must be given the power to order the disclosure of any information they need to do their cost and spending assessments, and;
the PBO must be required to release the findings of their investigations as soon as they are completed whether or not parliament is in session.

While there is an Auditor General for every government in Canada, they also do not have key powers, and resources, needed to ensure the public’s money is spent wisely, and efficiently.

Cases of fraud spending by politicians across Canada are usually dealt with in secret, behind closed doors, by a Board of Internal Economy or similar body made up of politicians from all parties who protect themselves and their party members instead of enforcing the rules and ensuring that taxpayers’ money is not spent inappropriately. This cannot be allowed to continue if Canada wants to call itself a democracy.

I am also calling on federal, provincial and territorial politicians to make the following key changes to strengthen rules and the powers of Auditor Generals to audit politician spending across Canada to ensure, especially, they are not using taxpayer money to pay their personal or political party costs:

before establishing an ongoing contracting out arrangement of any public service, all government institutions and publicly funded institutions must obtain public, written approval from the Auditor General that the arrangement costs less than hiring public servants to provide the service;
require all politicians, their offices, staff people, and all government institutions and organizations that receive significant government funding to submit actual, detailed receipts and information showing the number and identity of people at any event, what exactly was purchased, by whom exactly, for what use, and at what price, for all expenses claimed and require the same for all travel expenses claimed;
require all politicians, their offices, staff people, and all government institutions and organizations that receive significant government funding to disclose within 30 days after it is signed the full details of every contract handed out (amount spent, exact work done, all evaluation reports); and to disclose within 30 days of completion every internal evaluation report about spending;
require all politicians, their offices, staff people, and all government institutions and organizations that receive significant government funding, before making significant purchases, including for government advertising, to check early on with the federal, provincial or territorial Auditor General’s office to ensure that what is being bought, and the proposed spending process, both comply with spending rules;
parties, candidates, contestants and riding associations must all be required to disclose all details about their spending (including parties and riding associations being required to disclose every 3 months a detailed financial statement of their revenue and spending) to ensure they are not using donors’ money and public subsidies to pay anyone’s personal costs (such as a politician’s defence costs in a court case about their alleged violation of a law) and they all must be prohibited from spending the money they raise in improper ways such as giving grants to community groups or individuals between elections as a way of buying votes at election time, and the Auditor General must be clearly empowered, and mandated, to audit this spending;
empower the federal, provincial or territorial Auditor General to reject any proposed government advertising if the advertising is essentially an advertisement for the ruling party and to only approve informational advertising that informs the public about key aspects of government laws or programs in a non-partisan way;
require all evidence of fraudulent spending, procurement or contracting to be reported to the police, and make it a violation to fail to report fraud punishable by high fines, loss of job, loss of pension and jail term for the most serious violations;
require the federal, provincial or territorial Auditor General to regularly audit spending by all government institutions, and by politicians and their staff (at least once every 3 years) and ensure they are given the resources needed to fulfill their mandate each year (based on an independent needs assessment of their proposed budget);
require that all investigations of politician spending be conducted by a federal, provincial or territorial Auditor General who is fully independent from Cabinet, chosen through a fully independent appointments commission, approved by a majority of party leaders in the legislature, and fully empowered and required to investigate all alleged violations of rules, and give all the Auditor Generals the power to penalize violators and to order a correction of any wrongdoing, including mandatory high fines, loss of any severance payment, and partial clawback of any pension payments;
require the Auditor General to rule publicly on every complaint and situation in which there is reasonable evidence of wrongdoing, and;
require the Auditor General to release the findings of their investigations as soon as they are completed whether or not parliament is in session.

Finally, given that spending of the public’s money by governments across Canada that goes to foreign companies makes accountability for that spending more difficult as it raises the difficulties of enforcing Canadian laws in another jurisdiction and ensuring that taxes are paid in full here, especially companies located in countries that do not have democratic good government systems, and given that spending Canadians money within Canada generally produces the most benefit for the country’s economy whenever a Canadian company can qualified supply goods or services to a government at a competitive price, I call on you to change your government’s policies to favour purchasing from Canadian companies and, if no Canadian company is available, from companies that are located in democratic countries.

Please let me know what you will do to ensure that these changes are made as soon as possible. I will be deciding which political party to vote for in the next election based on the responses I receive from representatives in each party. I look forward to hearing from you.

Thank you.

Hello,
Dozens of politician and government spending scandals have happened in the past decade across Canada at the federal level and in provinces, territories, cities and towns. Politicians and government officials have been caught lying about spending billions of dollars, hiding spending, misspending or just plain wasting the public’s money, including spending your money on themselves, their family and friends, or to help their political party.
As well, dishonesty in government spending is rampant across Canada. The federal Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO) and Ontario’s Financial Accountability Officer (FAO) have revealed many cases of the Prime Minister, Ontario Premier and government Cabinet ministers making false claims about government spending and budgets.
But the PBO and FAO have also been stopped from doing their work by Cabinet ministers and government officials refusing to give them key spending information, and by cutting the funding and resources that they have to do their jobs.
I am calling on federal politicians to make the following key changes to strengthen the independence and powers of the Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO) in the following ways (and Ontario politicians to change the Financial Accountability Officer in the same ways), and I am calling on every provincial and territorial political party to work with other parties to establish a PBO with the following key structure:
<ol>
<li>the selection of the PBO as a full Officer of Parliament, independent of Cabinet, with a fixed, non-renewable term of office and full power over the selection and management of their staff, must be approved by a majority of party leaders after a public, merit-based nomination process to ensure a non-partisan and effective person is selected;</li>
<li>the PBO must be given the resources needed to fulfill their mandate each year (based on an independent needs assessment of their proposed budget);</li>
<li>the government must be required, before proposing significant spending, to check with the PBO to ensure that the actual total of the proposed spending is being accurately estimated;</li>
<li>the PBO must be given the power to order the disclosure of any information they need to do their cost and spending assessments, and;</li>
<li>the PBO must be required to release the findings of their investigations as soon as they are completed whether or not parliament is in session.</li>
</ol>
While there is an Auditor General for every government in Canada, they also do not have key powers, and resources, needed to ensure the public’s money is spent wisely, and efficiently.
Cases of fraud spending by politicians across Canada are usually dealt with in secret, behind closed doors, by a Board of Internal Economy or similar body made up of politicians from all parties who protect themselves and their party members instead of enforcing the rules and ensuring that taxpayers’ money is not spent inappropriately. This cannot be allowed to continue if Canada wants to call itself a democracy.
I am also calling on federal, provincial and territorial politicians to make the following key changes to strengthen rules and the powers of Auditor Generals to audit politician spending across Canada to ensure, especially, they are not using taxpayer money to pay their personal or political party costs:
<ol>
<li>before establishing an ongoing contracting out arrangement of any public service, all government institutions and publicly funded institutions must obtain public, written approval from the Auditor General that the arrangement costs less than hiring public servants to provide the service;</li>
<li>require all politicians, their offices, staff people, and all government institutions and organizations that receive significant government funding to submit actual, detailed receipts and information showing the number and identity of people at any event, what exactly was purchased, by whom exactly, for what use, and at what price, for all expenses claimed and require the same for all travel expenses claimed;</li>
<li>require all politicians, their offices, staff people, and all government institutions and organizations that receive significant government funding to disclose within 30 days after it is signed the full details of every contract handed out (amount spent, exact work done, all evaluation reports); and to disclose within 30 days of completion every internal evaluation report about spending;</li>
<li>require all politicians, their offices, staff people, and all government institutions and organizations that receive significant government funding, before making significant purchases, including for government advertising, to check early on with the federal, provincial or territorial Auditor General’s office to ensure that what is being bought, and the proposed spending process, both comply with spending rules;</li>
<li>parties, candidates, contestants and riding associations must all be required to disclose all details about their spending (including parties and riding associations being required to disclose every 3 months a detailed financial statement of their revenue and spending) to ensure they are not using donors’ money and public subsidies to pay anyone’s personal costs (such as a politician’s defence costs in a court case about their alleged violation of a law) and they all must be prohibited from spending the money they raise in improper ways such as giving grants to community groups or individuals between elections as a way of buying votes at election time, and the Auditor General must be clearly empowered, and mandated, to audit this spending;</li>
<li>empower the federal, provincial or territorial Auditor General to reject any proposed government advertising if the advertising is essentially an advertisement for the ruling party and to only approve informational advertising that informs the public about key aspects of government laws or programs in a non-partisan way;</li>
<li>require all evidence of fraudulent spending, procurement or contracting to be reported to the police, and make it a violation to fail to report fraud punishable by high fines, loss of job, loss of pension and jail term for the most serious violations;</li>
<li>require the federal, provincial or territorial Auditor General to regularly audit spending by all government institutions, and by politicians and their staff (at least once every 3 years) and ensure they are given the resources needed to fulfill their mandate each year (based on an independent needs assessment of their proposed budget);</li>
<li>require that all investigations of politician spending be conducted by a federal, provincial or territorial Auditor General who is fully independent from Cabinet, chosen through a fully independent appointments commission, approved by a majority of party leaders in the legislature, and fully empowered and required to investigate all alleged violations of rules, and give all the Auditor Generals the power to penalize violators and to order a correction of any wrongdoing, including mandatory high fines, loss of any severance payment, and partial clawback of any pension payments;</li>
<li>require the Auditor General to rule publicly on every complaint and situation in which there is reasonable evidence of wrongdoing, and;</li>
<li>require the Auditor General to release the findings of their investigations as soon as they are completed whether or not parliament is in session.</li>
</ol>
Finally, given that spending of the public’s money by governments across Canada that goes to foreign companies makes accountability for that spending more difficult as it raises the difficulties of enforcing Canadian laws in another jurisdiction and ensuring that taxes are paid in full here, especially companies located in countries that do not have democratic good government systems, and given that spending Canadians money within Canada generally produces the most benefit for the country’s economy whenever a Canadian company can qualified supply goods or services to a government at a competitive price, I call on you to change your government’s policies to favour purchasing from Canadian companies and, if no Canadian company is available, from companies that are located in democratic countries.
Please let me know what you will do to ensure that these changes are made as soon as possible. I will be deciding which political party to vote for in the next election based on the responses I receive from representatives in each party. I look forward to hearing from you.
Thank you.

Thank you for sending your letter, and please help keep this campaign going until these key democracy reforms are won. To donate now, please click here.

NOTE: Democracy Watch will protect your privacy, and keep you informed about this campaign and others.

To see where your letter goes, click here

Please support democracy

Please send your letter now

Campaign News