Beyond The Commons

Aaron Wherry covers all the goings-on in and around Parliament Hill. Follow Aaron on Twitter: @aaronwherry

Categories: Beyond The Commons, Capital Read

Your tax dollars at work

by Aaron Wherry on Thursday, October 28, 2010 12:08pm - 0 Comments

The Board of Internal Economy has tabled its latest report of MP expenses. The second biggest expenditure line: ten percenters. Seems the Canadian public was charged $10,182,707.71 for the printing of partisan flotsam during the last fiscal year.

Tags: Board of Internal Economy, expenses, MP expenses, ten percenters

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Holly Stick

I would call that theft. The political parties should pay back every penny.
BCer in Mtl

I would love to see the breakdown by party, compared to the proportions of seats held.
Crit_Reasoning

It's not all partisan flotsam, Wherry. Some of it is partisan jetsam.
Lymetime

Can we get a Rob Ford on the Federal Level to decry this ridiculous expenditures. How disgusting.

LdKitchenersOwn

I live in Toronto, and I'd like to suggest that you not settle for "a Rob Ford". Go for the real deal.

I'm available to help in any way I can in convincing Mr. Ford to move to Ottawa.

gottabesaid

Prediction: Within the next week, one of the major parties will vow to get rid of 10 per-centers if they're elected next time 'round. At least, I hope one of them does.
LdKitchenersOwn

In the left hand column of the first link there's an "Expenditures by Member" link. Check off whichever Members you'd like to look into, and boom! It's all right there for you. Still pretty broad categories of spending, but useful information nonetheless.

Jenn_

How embarrassing. There were links? I get mad at other people for that. Thanks. My MP spent over $34,000. Now to invite him to a public meeting!

bennji1977

I believe that had to do with the practice of sending them outside of your riding.

So, for example, a MP from Manitoba can not use their 10% budget to sent them to a the Yukon.

Dave

The old rule was in effect during this reporting period. Let's see what next year's figures bring, which will be under the new rules where MP's can only mail to their own riding.

danby

A quick perusal shows 4 MP's who spent over $100, 000 on ten percenters:
Patrick Brown
Brian Jean
Peter Kent
Guy Lauzon

Conservatives all, but certainly not fiscal conservatives.

LdKitchenersOwn

Yeah, because there are "fiscal conservatives" in Canada.

They live on unicorn farms leased from leprechauns.

Orson Bean

There's no question that Harper et al. saw a loophole re the 10 percenters, and drove a truck through it.

There's also no question that Harper and his CPC have pursued an extremely agressive communications (and, ergo, fundraising) strategy — just ask anyone who gets on the party's email list. And of course on the fundraising side, it's been very successful.

This all goes to what some call the "professionalization" of politics, the employment by political parties of sophisticated and aggressive marketing and client-tracking strategies from the business world in order to maximize membership, voter turnout and fundraising results. It's cheesy, brash, aggressive, in-your-face and all, but unfortunately I think this is where everyone is going.

It reminds me of what some columnist wrote regarding a typical political fundraising letter or email. Those of us who are used to reading more "literate" fare cringe at these fundraising letters, they seem so unbelievably cheesy and dumbed-down. But apparently, according to the pros, that's what works.
Thwim

Ideally while said MP is suspended over a dunk-tank containing horses excrement not unlike that being peddled in the flyers. Charge a loonie per baseball throw.. allow the MP to leave when his 10% bill is recouped.

True.. this is probably unfair to those who are disabled and cannot use their arms.. and if we instituted this I expect they'd be deluged with 10%ers from then on.. however I would be happy to volunteer my services to throw for them.

Jenn_

Well, that's certainly one way to go.

My preferred response is to require them to personally pay the interest . . . for as long as they shall live.

Thwim

While that'd certainly be equitable, I think my way provides the additional benefit of increasing the morale of the public at the same time.

That said, I'm easy. We could do both!