Federal politicians’ expense accounts. They’ve become the most closely guarded secret on Parliament Hill. The federal auditor general wants to release them. Advocacy groups say more transparency is long overdue.

At this point, MPs spending is lumped under general categories like “staff and other expenses” and “other.”

With the exception of the Bloc Québécois, federal parties are resisting Attorney General Sheila Fraser’s request to delve into the nitty-gritty of MPs’ spending habits. And they may be able to outlast the top government watchdog — her 10-year term expires next May.

With a $308,348 office budget, Conservative MP Rob Anders holds the 2008 to 2009 title of Calgary’s highest-spending MP — and is the fourth biggest spender among all 308 MPs. He says the issue has legs. “I don’t think there’s a lot of point in fighting it; I just think it’s just the way things will go.”

So what does Anders, a 13-year backbencher, spend so much taxpayer dollars on? For starters there’s $283,643 for the three full-time-and two part-time staff (plus an unpaid U.S. intern) and “other expenses.” (Contrast that with Calgary MP Deepak Obhrai, who spent $204,288 — and returned $25,000 of his expense budget, bragged his constituency office.)

Some people are flabbergasted about the staunch conservative MP’s spending. “This guy who talks about saving government funds and refuses to hire a student in his riding because he doesn’t want to waste taxpayer dollars is the fourth-highest spending MP?” says Lori Williams, political scientist at Mount Royal University. “Talk about hypocrisy.”

Ten years ago, Anders vetoed $620,000 in employment grants for university students in his riding. “I did what I think is right,” Anders told CJSW after his decision. The then-Liberal federal government overrode the decision.

His travel budget: a relatively modest (amongst his colleagues) total of $114,147. “I fly mostly economy… and probably fly first-class about once a year.”

Printing costs (again, one of the highest among MPs) are $62,579. That’s a lot of printed pro-Conservative literature in one of the most Internet-friendly cities in the world and arguably the safest riding for the governing party.

“We may print more than other offices do, but that’s because we’re an activist office,” says Anders, noting most of his mail-outs — up to 5,000 at a time — focused on issues the Conservative Resource Group, the strategy arm of his party, deemed important.

Anders’s conservative advocacy often focuses on property rights, getting tough on crime and the gun registry. At a town hall meeting in Anders’s constituency earlier this year, guns were the topic among the male-dominated sparse crowd. However, many were more concerned about the teetering Canadian economy and the prime minister’s most recent prorogation of Parliament.

Anders plans to hold another town hall meeting later this month — to discuss property rights with Anders and University of Calgary professor Tom Flanagan.

Donna Kennedy-Glans, a Calgary lawyer and longtime opponent of Anders, says the MP’s expenses — especially the “self-serving” pamphlets piling up on her desk, do not surprise her.

“It feels like a perpetual campaign,” she says. “Our MP is a backbencher, isn’t a minister and yet there are ministers who are running more efficient operations and effective communications and doing it more cost effectively,” she says. “What’s going on?”