Accountability in Crisis: The Sponsorship Scandal and the Office of the Comptroller General in Canada

For much of the last 50 years, a key platform animating public sector reform in Canada and elsewhere has been that efficiency and effectiveness can be achieved by adapting private sector financial management methods and practices. We argue that the recent re-establishment of the Office of the Comptr...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of business ethics 2009-01, Vol.84 (2), p.189-208
Main Authors: Free, Clinton, Radcliffe, Vaughan
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Accountability
accounting
Accounting standards
audit
Audit committees
Auditing
Business and Management
Business Ethics
Canada
Civil service
Comptroller general
Comptrollers
control
Education
Ethics
Federal government
Finance
financial accountability
Financial management
Government
Government agencies
Government bureaucracy
Government policy
Government reform
Governmental reform
Internal audits
Interviews
Management
Management audits
new public management
Organizational analysis
Organizational change
Parliamentary system
Philosophy
Prime ministers
Professional development
Public administration
Public expenditure
Public sector
public sector management
Quality of Life Research
Reform
Reforms
Scandals
Sponsorship
Studies
Workshops
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Summary:For much of the last 50 years, a key platform animating public sector reform in Canada and elsewhere has been that efficiency and effectiveness can be achieved by adapting private sector financial management methods and practices. We argue that the recent re-establishment of the Office of the Comptroller General (OCG) of Canada represents a key element of a program of strengthening financial accountability that has emerged within the Canadian Federal Government. Although this program is longstanding and is associated Canada's implementation of new public management initiatives, it has recently drawn particular sustenance from the sponsorship scandal in Canada. We demonstrate that the reincarnated OCG, re-established amid a rhetoric of "modernization" and of "strengthening" accountability, has a wide-ranging mandate to enhance financial and audit controls, create financial standards, nurture professional development, and oversee government spending. We explore some of the consequences of this development and of the broader financial accountability mechanisms introduced in response to the Sponsorship scandal within the Canadian public sector.
ISSN:0167-4544
1573-0697
DOI:10.1007/s10551-008-9681-8