Harper breaking law on proactive disclosure

The Prime Minister is breaking government rules on contracting, disclosure or Parliamentary budgeting. According to the following article by Canadian Press reporter Jennifer Ditchburn, PM Steve has not disclosed who is paying Psychic primper, Michelle Muntean. I hired the amazing Kresgin who revealed to me that taxpayers are getting hosed and good reporters like Jennifer Ditchburn won't let this one go.

Mirror, mirror: `Who pays PM's primper?' gets no response
Source: The Canadian Press
By Jennifer Ditchburn
OTTAWA (CP) _
The cost to taxpayers for Stephen Harper's personal stylist is destined to remain the prime minister's beauty secret.
The NDP attempted to part the curtains blocking access to details about the public cost of Michelle Muntean's services, and who oversees her work. MP Judy Wasylycia-Leis submitted a formal question in the House of Commons that requires a government answer, but received no details.
Muntean has travelled the world with Harper as his personal image advisor, including managing his wardrobe and his grooming. It is not certain whether she was with the prime minister in Germany this week for the G8 leaders meetings, although the gregarious former TV makeup artist has typically joined Harper's entourage for major excursions abroad.
Harper's staff has repeatedly refused to divulge the size of her salary.
The response given to Judy Wasylycia-Leis, prepared by the Privy Council Office and signed by Harper's parliamentary secretary, was that there were ``no records indicating Michelle Muntean is an employee (public servant or exempt staff) or that she submitted expenses for payment for expenses incurred by her or on her behalf.''
Yet government officials have said she is considered part of Harper's ``travel staff'' and that her salary is not picked up by the Conservative Party of Canada.
That leaves only one possibility for the mystery of who provides Muntean's paycheques: the House of Commons.
Each MP _ including Harper _ gets a yearly budget through the Commons to help run their offices. The details of those budgets are not covered under Access to Information laws and Harper can keep the numbers concealed forever if he likes.
Wasylycia-Leis said Harper seems to have a double-standard for transparency. As a Reform MP in the mid-1990's, Harper demanded that leader Preston Manning reveal the details of his party-paid wardrobe allowance.
``Canadians have a right to know in the first place, and that's doubly so given that Stephen Harper himself has made a big deal about clothes, or personal accoutrements coming out of public budgets or even party budgets,'' Wasylycia-Leis said. ``He needs to fess up and he needs to be absolutely forthcoming with Canadians.''
Harper's director of communications Sandra Buckler did not return a message with questions about Muntean's salary.

A further complicating factor is that this appears to be a breach of the separation between legislative and executive branches. Why would the PM have constituency employees flying to G8 meetings? If she is on the House budget, where are the journal vouchers transfering funds back to the PCO to defray travel costs? As well, there are restrictions on MP budget foreign travel, where are the authorizations. This stinks.
What is she doing, bunking with Steve or Buckler when she is on these taxpayer paid trips? What Canadians really want to know is if it is the proactive or the disclosure that Steve has a problem with.