Manitoba's Progressive Conservative government is defending its decision to hike a key financial reporting threshold by 900 per cent, but one critic says it's a hit to government transparency.

Up until 2016, payments over $5,000 made by the provincial government to individuals, corporations and other governments were made public in an annual report.

After a change made quietly in this year's report, only payments exceeding $50,000 are now disclosed.

"This would seem like a step backwards," said Todd MacKay of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. "Taxpayers deserve the right to know … This is information that should be out there."

Change recommended by auditor general

The government said it made the change because the reportable amount had not been adjusted for inflation since 1983.

"This threshold change had been recommended by the Office of the Auditor General of Manitoba," Finance Minister Cameron Friesen said in an emailed statement.

Manitoba's auditor general, Norm Ricard, confirmed his office advised that the threshold should be raised, but did not specify how high it should go.

"Because $50,000 is a policy decision, I'm really not commenting on the appropriateness of that," Ricard said. "It is what it is. But the higher the threshold, the less you disclose and less information is readily and easily available to the public."

Journalists routinely use public accounts to hold government to account.

Some of this type of information is likely still available after the change to the reporting threshold, but would require a Freedom of Information request, which can take weeks, if not months, to obtain.

After the death of Tina Fontaine, for example, a series of CBC News stories uncovered that children in Child and Family Services care were being housed in hotels and supervised by workers hired from private agencies. It involved a painstaking search through years of public accounts to find out how widespread the practice was.

Many of the payments CBC examined fell below the new $50,000 threshold.

Family services made 165 payments under $50,000, totalling more than $2.6 million, to hotels between 2006 and 2014.

Those payments account for more than a quarter of the $8.2 million paid in total for hotel rooms by the department during that period.

The scrutiny of CFS's use of hotels intensified after CBC's initial reporting, and the practice of keeping kids in hotels eventually ended after after a 15-year-old girl was badly beaten and sexually assaulted in downtown Winnipeg in 2015.

AG recommended extending disclosure

In 2014, the auditor general recommended extending the disclosure requirement to other government entities like school boards and the Winnipeg Regional Health Authority. After four years and a change in government, the recommendation has not been adopted.

"It's a long time," said Ricard. " I don't know what the holdup is. It's something that the public accounts committee would need to ask the department: 'What's the holdup? Are you intending to do it or not?'"

Friesen said his government is still thinking about it.

"We're not opposed to this recommendation in principle and haven't ruled it out, while keeping in mind approximately 180 reporting entities would be affected," Friesen said in a statement.

He said it would involve a "massive volume" of paperwork.

"Action to improve transparency must achieve the right balance and take into consideration the province's promise to reduce red tape across government," said Friesen.

'There should be no corner of government that the light of transparency doesn't hit,' said Todd MacKay, the Prairie director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. (CBC News)

MacKay was quick to remind the government about promises made by Premier Brian Pallister.

"The government talked about an open government policy — that was something that it had campaigned on. They campaigned on providing more transparency, putting up more documents proactively," said MacKay.

Manitoba's PC Party outlined its "open government initiative" in a 2016 document, prior to the April election that brought the party to power.

"Information that belongs to Manitobans should no longer be held to either benefit government in a partisan way or to protect it from scrutiny and accountability," the document said.

"This requires both a legislative change and a cultural shift toward open government."

MacKay says he wants to see the government put those words into action.

"There should be no corner of government that the light of transparency doesn't hit."