Where the heck’s that $3.1-billion? Where’s the fury? [View all]

So is that it? There is $3.1-billion in government money unaccounted for, as Auditor-General Michael Ferguson reported some time ago. It just kind of flew off into the netherworld. And it seems most everyone has forgotten. As in, too bad taxpayer, nothing can be done.

You have to wonder, has there ever been so large a federal sum dematerialize like this? Will there be no inquiry? Will not one head roll – not a public servant’s, not a politician’s?

The money was initially targeted for public security and anti-terrorism funding. There was $12.9-billion allocated. Only $9.8-billion has been accounted for. Mr. Ferguson asked the Treasury Board, which is supposed to track spending scrupulously, to explain the gap, to come up with some answers. It didn’t have any. It still doesn’t.

The Conservatives, who tout themselves as first-rate managers of the public purse, seem just to have brushed it off. They hoped, maybe in their wildest dreams, that the story would go away in a few days after the A-G’s revelation back in April. And that’s what happened.

“Amazing. The scale of this is unbelievable,” says former parliamentary budget officer Kevin Page, who always can be relied upon to hold the Conservatives’ feet to the fire. “Can you imagine, in a private-sector world, where $3-billion went missing and they went back to shareholders and said, ‘Ah, sorry, folks, but we don’t know where it is’?”

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