MPP hunt how 70M in anglers' fees vanish

[TrapJack]

I guess writing and calling your MPP as a hunter, fisherman or trapper actually can get them to help... Even if we're 5 years into this.

i'll stop posting if people aren't interested in the updates as they come. Though i find them interesting, i assume others would too, since i get a fair amount of response form them.

http://www.stthomastimesjournal.com/...rs-fees-vanish

MPP hunts how $70M in anglers’ fees vanish








A provincial fund of $70 million in public money doesn’t just disappear.
One way to find out for sure would be to call in Auditor-General Bonnie Lysyk, which is just what a London-area MPP wants to do.
Progressive Conservative Jeff Yurek, who represents Elgin-Middlesex-London, has requested help from Lysyk — the independent watchdog who monitors how taxpayer money is spent, or misspent — to determine where the cash from Ontario hunters and anglers’ licensing fees has gone.
“I’m hoping the auditor general gets back to us in a week or so,” Yurek said Wednesday.
The money was earmarked for use by Ministry of Natural Resources for hunting and angling.
Instead, a local citizens’ group, the Aylmer District Stakeholder Committee, discovered through freedom-of-information requests it had been spent on things such as purchase and sale of a house ($65,000) and psychologists ($12,251).
Yurkek said he “honestly can’t picture” any circumstances where those expenses, paid out of a so-called special purpose account, would qualify as legitimate expenditures.
Yurek also said an FOI request on the subject of local expenditures came back with a response of “no records exist,” which would be a breach of the rules that govern such funds. Receipts must be kept for every withdrawal, Yurek said.
“Basically, I’ve been trying to find how the money in the special purpose account was spent,” he said. The process has taken years.
Yurek expects she will get back to him fairly quickly.
“Just like the Alymer District Stakeholders, we’ve been at this for five years,” Yurek said of the work his staff has done on the file.
“At this point, for us, it’s left in the hands of the proper channels,” said Ken Currah, a spokesperson for the stakeholder committee. Because Currah’s group was only able to get FOI responses for one year, he believes there could potentially be larger sums of moneyinvolved in any final audit.
A spokesperson for the ministry could not be reached Wednesday.
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