'I don't care': Whitehorse mayor shrugs off study giving city failing grade for financial transparency

'I don't care': Whitehorse mayor shrugs off study giving city failing grade for financial transparency

C.D. Howe Institute found Whitehorse's books don't meet common accounting standards

A new report from the C.D. Howe Institute ranks Whitehorse as one of Canada's least transparent cities when it comes to accessing budget information.

But Mayor Kirk Cameron isn't bothered.

"I'll be blunt: I don't care," Cameron told Midday Cafe host Leonard Linklater Friday.

"This is a report that's done by a very competent national organization that looks at everything from big to small, mostly east to west, and we are looped into that overall picture," he said.

"But I don't think it does justice to the fact that the City of Whitehorse is a very, very different creature."

The report gave Whitehorse — as well as Charlottetown, Gatineau, Hamilton, Montreal, and Victoria — an F on fiscal transparency, which reflects "multiple problems with missing information, inconsistent accounting, and timeliness."

It goes on to say Whitehorse’s budget did not provide numbers consistent with public sector accounting standards or "comprehensive operating and capital spending totals."

This, the C.D. Howe Institute suggests, makes it more difficult to citizens and elected officials to understand how the city spends public money.

Cameron did not explain what makes Whitehorse so unique that common public accounting methods would not apply to it.

Other Northern cities fared better in the report: Yellowknife got a D grade, while Iqaluit earned a B+.

This is the first year that C.D. Howe has included the three northern capital cities in its annual accountability report card.

Nicholas Dahir, a research officer with C.D. Howe, said while some cities make it easy to read about their cash flows, Whitehorse doesn't.

"It was slightly more problematic," Dahir said. "There was really no 'one-stop-shop' for somebody who wanted to see the capital budget and the operating budget in one document."

Instead, the institute says, the city's general and utility totals are separated across different operating and capital budget documents.

The lack of consolidated numbers "really pushed Whitehorse into a failing grade," Dahir said.

He said clear financial reporting is needed for citizens to engage with their municipality's spending decisions.

"When this stuff is super complicated, it really undermines the engagement," he said.

Chris Windeyer is a reporter with CBC Yukon. He is the former editor of the Yukon News and a past Southam Journalism Fellow at Massey College.

With files from Mardy Derby and Leonard Linklater