Full public disclosure: Publish water bills?

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This article was published 30/4/2015 (1147 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Over the last several years, accountability and transparency issues have been at the forefront of discussions and news coverage of Canadian politics. The usual targets have been politicians such as former MP Bev Oda, former Alberta premier Alison Redford, and senators Mike Duffy, Mac Harb and Pamela Wallin. Other popular targets include the "sunshine list" of public-sector employees at all levels of government, such as professors, teachers and police officers, among others.

The usual narrative in these stories is how we need more accountability and transparency in our governments. In practice, this means the government should post more public information about these politicians and employees, such as salaries, benefits and expenses, and to include as much detail as possible about their office, travel and technology expenditures.

On the one hand, these demands make a lot of sense. Accountability and transparency form the bedrock of Canadian democracy, and so it is important we develop effective systems for monitoring how politicians and public-sector employees are paid and how they spend public funds.

But, there is such a thing as too much accountability and transparency.

If we follow the logic all public servants should have their expenses and salaries made public to curb the misuse and encourage the effective use of public funds, then a similar logic can and should be applied to Canadian citizens.

For instance, the federal, provincial, territorial and municipal governments of Canada could publish detailed information on how individual Canadian citizens, businesses and organizations interact with their programs and services.

To improve health-care spending and reduce wait times, provincial governments could publish how often individual citizens or households visit a medical facility each year and the reasons for their visit.

The federal government could publish the names and/or street addresses of people on social assistance and the amount of support they receive each year from the government.

To curb water use and encourage conservation, municipal governments could publish the amount of water used by every household in their jurisdictions.

Most Canadians, of course, would not accept these reporting practices, even though the logic behind them is similar to the logic used to defend the publication of highly detailed reports on politicians and public servants.

There is no question mechanisms that promote accountability and transparency are good things for democracy, but there has to be a logical connection between the goals and tools of a particular public policy.

In economics, scholars sometimes analyze these situations by looking at the "opportunity costs" involved.

In other words, when confronted with a set of choices, the right choice depends on the relative costs and benefits incurred compared to a different set of choices.

When it comes to demands for greater detail about the salaries and expenditures of politicians and public servants, the amount of time and effort involved would be best spent elsewhere, given the limited benefits that would accrue from such policies.

Christopher Alcantara is associate professor of political science at Wilfrid Laurier University.