Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says her government will revisit a policy that removed hotel names from public expense records, following concerns about taxpayer transparency.This comes after a participant at the third Alberta Next panel’s town hall in Edmonton raised a question asking why the government changed a policy on Aug. 1, ending the longstanding requirement for government officials to publicly post itemized receipts for taxpayer-funded expenses, which are now only available through paid freedom-of-information requests.“I just want to ask you one quick thing about taxes and transparency. Lot of tax waste in the federal government. I just heard this week that we have removed the transparency on the internet. For Alberta government for over $100 could you please be responsible to taxpayers, or explain why,” the participant asked.Smith said in response: “I can't, because I'm confused by that too,” noting that a cabinet meeting will be held Tuesday to discuss the concern.In her response, Smith also acknowledged that the intention behind the policy was to protect ministers’ safety. However, she admitted that the implementation went beyond what was intended..UPDATED: 'We’re worried about poverty': Smith, panel hear from Albertans in Edmonton.“The issue that cabinet discussed was that there are a number of my ministers who go to the same hotels when they're frequenting different municipalities, and they just wanted the name of the hotel redacted, just in case people were tracking them down and following. That was what the policy was supposed to be,” she said.“It turned out to be something quite different. So we're going to see if we can maybe try to track down how that happened and do a reversal on that.”Smith also addressed broader concerns about wasteful federal spending and stressed the importance of being accountable to taxpayers.The policy in question had been in place since 2012.
