Exposing nearly $6 million in secretive government expense claims, Wildrose Leader Brian Jean blasted the Progressive Conservative government on Tuesday for passing "secret laws, phony laws and bad laws."

Standing with supporters on the legislature grounds in Edmonton, Jean released a 2012 email to senior government officials that shows the PC government created a broadly-defined expense category called "corporate events" that would not be disclosed on the government's searchable expense disclosure portal, once touted as the "gold-standard" for transparency.

"So the gold-standard of disclosure was actually the gold-standard of hiding," said Jean, tearing into the PC record of "scandals, elitism and arrogance" as the reason Albertans are jaded about provincial politics.

The expense category, defined as costs incurred for government meetings or staff retreats that are not held at a restaurant, saw $1.4 million in expenses in 2012-13 fiscal year and another $4.5 million in 2013-14. In 2013-14 alone, Alberta Justice expensed over $500,000 for corporate events while Human Services expensed $1.1 million.

"I thought the Liberals in Ottawa were bad," quipped the former Conservative MP. "Albertans have been deceived by a government that pretended to be transparent, that pretends today to be transparent, while it is actually being secretive. This must end."

Jean also tore into the government for having 66 "phony laws" that were passed but not proclaimed, showing that legislation is "nothing more than a public relations exercise for the PCs." He also accused the government of passing laws that grant "enormous" powers to provincial ministers and blocks citizens from challenging cabinet rulings..

Jean said his party would "reverse the trend" by strengthening ethics commissioner and auditor general's offices while also introducing MLA recall legislation and "reforms to the legislative process to put an end to PC cronyism."

Responding to the issue at a campaign rally, PC Leader Jim Prentice claimed he didn't know much about the expense category as it was created in 2012, under the tenure of former premier Alison Redford.

"I'm not sure what goes in it. It's not something that's used by my office, I can assure you of that," he said, reiterating that his Accountability Act from last fall means "all of our expenses are available for public scrutiny."

"(The category) should be eliminated. I'm not sure where it came from. It pre-dated me as the premier and I don't think we need it."

Refusing to respond to all of Jean's "strange accusations", Prentice said some laws are not immediately proclaimed because the government is still working with stakeholders to establish regulations.

matthew.dykstra@sunmedia.ca

@SunMattDykstra