From the Toronto Sun, on the release of the auditor general's report on the long-gun registry:

Liberal MP Irwin Cotler denied the Liberals deliberately tried to hide money.

Well, the accusation in the auditor general's is far more specific than just "the Liberals".

Here are some choice quotes from the report itself (my emphasis added):

We examined the progress made in the management of the Canadian Firearms Program since 2002, when we reported that we were unable to complete our audit of the cost of implementing the program. We said the financial information was unreliable and did not fairly present the net costs of the program. We also reported that the Department of Justice was not giving Parliament enough information to allow for effective scrutiny of the program or to explain the dramatic increase in its costs. We made only one recommendation in 2002: The Department of Justice should rectify these gaps in financial reporting.

4.1 In 1995, Parliament passed the Firearms Act and amendments to the Criminal Code to establish the Canadian Firearms Program under the principal responsibility of the Department of Justice Canada.

4.4 In our December 2002 Report, Chapter 10, we examined the costs of implementing the Canadian Firearms Program. We stopped the audit of the program's financial information because the data was unreliable, and we reported that the Department of Justice had not fairly presented the net cost of the program. We also reported that the Department had not provided Parliament with enough information to allow for effective scrutiny of the program or to explain the dramatic increase in its costs.

4.12 In December 2002, the Department of Justice had requested Parliament's approval for Supplementary Estimates to bring the Centre's 2002-03 planned spending to $113.5 million. Parliament at first would not approve the Supplementary Estimates as presented, but in March 2003 it agreed to do so based on the Minister's commitment that the Centre's spending for 2002-03 would not exceed $100.2 million.

4.13 The first accounting error. The Department later reported the Centre's actual spending for 2002-03 at $78.3 million . However, this amount did not include the estimated $39 million in CFIS II development costs incurred that year.

4.14 In our opinion, in leaving the $39 million unrecorded the Department of Justice did not comply with the Treasury Board's Policy on Payables at Year-End (PAYE). This policy states that costs for large system development are to be recorded as expenditures against a departmental appropriation in the year when they are incurred, rather than when they become due and payable under a contract. Furthermore, had the Department of Justice recorded this amount in its 2002-03 expenditures, while its total spending would have remained within its voted appropriation, the Centre's actual spending would have been $117.3 million, $17.1 million over the limit to which the Minister had committed.

The first audit was delivered in December of 2002. Martin Cauchon was Minister of Justice. He would be minister for one more year -- in December 2003 he was tossed out of cabinet as part of the purge of Chretienites when Paul Martin took over the leadership of the Liberal Party. The new minister was responsible for following through on the issues raised by the audit. Martin Cauchon's successor was minister from December 12, 2003 until February 5, 2006, when Conservative Vic Toews took over the ministry.

Just over two years.

And what a busy two years!

That minister promised to parliament in March 2003 that the Centre would not spend more than $100.2 million. That minister later reported to parliament that the spending was actually $78.3 million, and pulled this trick off by shuffling $39 million to the following year.

Of course, you would think that 2004 would now be a problem. But not for this minister.

In January 2004, that minister selectively recorded costs to keep the expenditures below the promised levels. At first, the Treasury Board Secretariat (that arm of Treasury Board responsible for accountability of ethics) required those costs to be reported as part of the Centre's expenditures, but "subsequent consultations" convinced the Secretariat to approve taking $21.8 million off the books altogether, hiding the money in the consolidated Accounts of Canada, instead of in the Centre's budget.

The name of this minister of justice? Irwin Cotler, of course.

So when Irwin Cotler insists that "the Liberals" were not deliberately hiding the money, he really means he was not deliberately hiding the money. What a modest guy.

In a way, Cotler did not hide the money. The extra expenditures were subsequently reported. But only after it was too late to do anything about it.

The subtle difference between that and hiding the money is lost on me. Maybe Irwin Cotler can explain it in detail while sitting in a witness box at a board of inquiry.

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