WHAT YOUR MONEY PAID FOR — The Public Accounts of Canada are the crowning achievement of the bureaucrats who typically work on Floor 13A1 of Phase III of the Place du Portage complex in Gatineau. The massive annual accounting exercise offers anyone able to read the three-volume tome a solid understanding of how dozens of government bodies spent public money. Deep within the Central Accounting and Reporting Sector of Public Services and Procurement's Accounting, Banking and Compensation Branch, you'll find the worker bees at the Central and Public Accounts Reporting Directorate tracking most federal dollars spent. ABDILLAHI ROBLE, the directorate's senior director, doesn't appear in the news. But he does beam with pride on LinkedIn . When Treasury Board President MONA FORTIER tabled the three-volume tome on her desk in the House last week, Roble boasted of its 1,200 pages and 4,000 financial tables. What lies within the Public Accounts? So many details, and a few surprises. — The PM trip that never was: Prime Minister JUSTIN TRUDEAU had been planning to visit France last December 5–7. Four of his advance staff and a handful of public servants even spent C$41,194 on the trip. Only one problem: The PM never arrived. The culprit? The emerging Omicron variant, which forced the PM to postpone the visit out of an abundance of caution. (Add that to the List of Government Events Vanished by the Pandemic beside the never-tabled-but-mostly-complete Budget 2020.) Instead, Trudeau stayed in Ottawa to meet Newfoundland and Labrador Premier ANDREW FUREY — and then traveled to Montreal to honor the victims of the 1989 École Polytechnique tragedy. He also attended an Equal Voice reception and a ceremony inducting ISABELLE HUDON into France's Légion d’honneur. — Oh so many consultants: The government spends billions of dollars a year on "professional and special services," a classification that includes accountants, lawyers, architects, engineers, scientific analysts, translators, teachers, doctors and nurses. Management and research consultants also fall under this category. Deloitte scored at least C$173.6 million in federal dough in 2021–2022, according to tabled figures. KPMG collected C$34.7 million. McKinsey scooped up C$32.5 million. Ernst & Young pocketed C$28.6 million. — Border testing: Earlier this year, feds weren't crystal-clear on exactly how much they paid four organizations to process Covid tests at entry points into Canada. The government set aside C$1.2 billion as recently as February for the task of testing travelers. The Public Accounts reveal how much was paid out before the end of the fiscal year on March 31. Switch Health received C$426 million for testing in Ontario, Alberta and the Maritimes. Lifelabs? C$109.4 million. Dynacare? C$92.4 million. Biron Groupe Santé? C$11.8 million. — The price of the 2021 election: C$504,801,099 . But the docs note the real number is actually higher, because election spending "spans several fiscal years." — The cost of a commission: Depends on the job . The effort to redraw federal riding boundaries cost C$3.3 million in the last fiscal year. The federal share of the joint public inquiry into the 2020 Nova Scotia shootings clocked in at C$11 million. FES HINTS — Deputy PM CHRYSTIA FREELAND met with chief economists from Canada's biggest banks on Monday, a traditional pre-Fall Economic Statement confab. Here's what we zeroed in on in the post-meeting readout . "The Deputy Prime Minister and chief economists agreed on the need for further investments in economic growth, innovation, productivity, and the green transition to ensure Canada’s economy continues to create good-paying jobs and prosperity for Canadians." A festival of buzzwords, followed by this: "The Deputy Prime Minister reaffirmed the government’s commitment to careful and prudent fiscal management." Did someone forward you this free newsletter? Sign up for your own copy to keep up with the latest insights and analysis from inside Ottawa politics. | 
