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Travel perks for MPs’ spouses topped $2.2 million last year
OTTAWA — Taxpayers spent $2.2 million flying MPs’ spouses and $554,000 flying their children around the country last year, according to the most recent annual MP expense report. Taxpayer watchdog...
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Union bill back to Senate; sponsor hopes it will now pass unscathed
OTTAWA — A push by Conservative senators last spring to go against government wishes and gut a private members bill on union disclosures seems to have been for naught. Because of prorogation, the work...
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Green Party leader, independent MPs protest move to muffle their input
OTTAWA — Three members of Parliament are protesting what they say is a dangerous ploy from the Prime Minister’s Office to muffle the views of independent MPs. In a letter this week to Finance...
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Here’s how House of Commons committees spend your money
OTTAWA – The somewhat little-known “Liaison Committee of the House of Commons” has tabled what appears to be the first compilation of expenses for Commons’ committees. The liaison committee, chaired by...
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Federal private member’s bill would give caucus power to boot leader
OTTAWA — Conservative MP Michael Chong has introduced a private member’s bill that aims to give political party caucuses more power — including the ability to oust their leaders. Although private...
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Usual naysaying, hysterics greet MP Michael Chong’s bid to reform Parliament
Can’t be done. Too risky. Goes too far. Doesn’t go far enough. Whenever and wherever someone actually makes some concrete proposal to repair our damaged democracy, the forces of inertia almost...
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Balance of power: MP Michael Chong on fixing the relationship between MPs and...
Ontario Conservative member of Parliament Michael Chong Tuesday introduced a private member’s bill dubbed “An Act to amend the Canada Elections Act and the Parliament of Canada Act (reforms).” He says...
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What they’re saying about the bill that would rebalance parliamentary power
What would MP Michael Chong’s private member’s bill, the Reform Act, actually do? If passed, the bill would do three things: 1) Give MPs the power to call a party leadership review if 15 per cent of...
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Senate scandal propels Chong’s Reform Act
Let’s dispense, to begin, with the quaint fiction that MP Michael Chong’s proposed Reform Act has nothing whatever to do with Prime Minister Stephen Harper and the Senate spending scandal. It has...
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Parliament takes two small steps toward greater openness
MPs took two small steps towards greater transparency in how they spend tax dollars on Thursday, announcing that they will post two documents online for the first time: the manual that guides them in...
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Yes, the state has a place in the caucus rooms of the nation
Even people sympathetic to the Reform Act’s proposals blanch at the idea of legislating them into effect. This is especially true of the process set out in the bill, introduced this week by...
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NDP wants emergency meeting of MPs to review Canada Post cuts
OTTAWA – The NDP has called for an emergency House of Commons committee meeting to review Canada Post’s decision to eliminate door-to-door delivery, slash up to 8,000 jobs and jack up the price of...
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Commons committee meets Wednesday to consider Canada Post discussion
OTTAWA — Less than a week into their Christmas break, members of the House of Commons transport committee will hold an emergency meeting to determine whether they’ll be discussing Canada Post’s new...
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Canada Post CEO Deepak Chopra says there’s ‘no time to waste’ in cutting...
OTTAWA ―Canada Post president and CEO Deepak Chopra told the House of Commons transport committee Wednesday that his Crown corporation needs to start implementing its controversial plan immediately or...
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22-year-old MP scores $11K salary bump after getting married
OTTAWA — It’s hard to imagine that Pierre-Luc Dusseault’s resume isn’t the envy of many of his Commons colleagues, not to mention the hundreds of political staffers who serve Parliamentarians – and the...
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Everyday Political Citizen project recognizes Canada’s unsung heroes
At a time when Canadian life has been dogged by scandal, from the Senate affair to the Rob Ford fiasco, is there still hope for politics? One non-partisan research group answers with an emphatic “yes.”...
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Will Montreal mayoralty candidate run for Team Trudeau?
MONTREAL — One of Montreal’s most visible and popular municipal candidates found herself front-and-centre at the Liberal Party of Canada’s biennial convention Friday, sparking renewed speculation that...
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Rob Ford welcomes Chow to mayoralty race as NDP laments her loss in House of...
OTTAWA — She was part of the political power couple that personified Canada’s modern-day New Democrats. When her husband, Jack Layton, died in 2011, the nation watched her remarkable grace as she...
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What Olivia Chow considered her priorities in Parliament
OTTAWA – Here’s a list of private members’ bills that were sponsored by Olivia Chow in the current session of Parliament. Private members’ bills seldom make it into law, but these give an idea of...
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Calgary MP Rob Anders’ team made fake calls, rival alleges
OTTAWA — A former Alberta provincial cabinet minister fighting Calgary MP Rob Anders for the Conservative nomination has complained to Elections Canada and the telecommunications watchdog that the MP’s...
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Opposition still fighting environmental changes as MPs prepare for...
OTTAWA — The federal budget bill and its contentious reforms to environmental protection are expected to clear the House of Commons this week, after the Conservative government voted Monday to limit...
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Conservatives poised to get budget bill through House of Commons
OTTAWA — Public sector pension reforms, a small-business hiring credit, a new electronic travel authorization system, judges’ pay raises and streamlined environmental protection for lakes and rivers...
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Mark Carney’s vacation shows the fine line public servants walk on conflicts...
OTTAWA — Bank of Canada Governor Mark Carney’s stay with a Liberal MP and the party’s interest in recruiting him have exposed the challenges and expectations facing public office holders — but also the...
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Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver recovering after bypass surgery
OTTAWA — Federal Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver is recovering after having heart bypass surgery and will be sidelined until roughly mid-February, although he remains active on his files and will...
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Conservative party acknowledges it was behind Saskatchewan robocall on...
Fred DeLorey, director of communications for the Conservative Party of Canada, acknowledged Tuesday the party was responsible for a mysterious robocall recently made to Saskatchewan residents about...
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Mark Carney takes on British MPs over his pay and political future
LONDON – The Bank of England’s next governor, Mark Carney, told British MP’s Thursday that he did not have political ambitions back home in Canada. “If I had political ambitions, I would have pursued...
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Federal minister Peter Penashue resigns over campaign irregularities; will...
OTTAWA – Peter Penashue, the federal intergovernmental affairs minister, resigned Thursday from cabinet and as the member of Parliament for Labrador over irregularities with campaign funding. It was...
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Ethics watchdog OK’s Bob Rae taking negotiating post for First Nations
OTTAWA – The federal conflict of interest commissioner has cleared interim Liberal leader Bob Rae, who is about to step down from that post and become an ordinary MP, to serve as a chief negotiator for...
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Canadian taxpayers paying more to fund ‘gold-plated’ parliamentary pension plan
OTTAWA — Canadians continue to pay more to fund a “gold-plated” parliamentary pension plan that spending watchdogs say has taxpayers ultimately contributing more than $25 for every dollar from MPs. The...
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Justin Trudeau in charge: five issues to watch
OTTAWA – With Justin Trudeau in charge of the federal Liberals, here are five issues to watch: Quebec: La belle province will be a key battleground during the next election between what will be...
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Canadian authorities on ‘heightened vigilance’ after Boston bombings
OTTAWA – MPs from all parties delivered eloquent tributes to the people of Boston Tuesday, while the public safety minister said Canadian authorities were in a “heightened state of vigilance” after the...
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Parliament losing power to keep tabs on government: Tory MP
OTTAWA — A former member of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s cabinet has warned that Canadian parliamentary democracy is being jeopardized by the “command and control” system that is removing the right...
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Parliamentarians: Time to start asking the right questions about spending
The following op-ed is offered by Paul Boothe, director of the Lawrence National Centre for Policy and Management at the Ivey Business School, Western University, and former deputy minister at...
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MP Mark Warawa hopes to address gendercide, as capital prepares for...
OTTAWA – On the same day a massive annual rally against abortion is planned in the nation’s capital, a Conservative backbencher hopes to speak out in Parliament against gendercide – if the Speaker of...
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Abortion debate looms for Prime Minister Stephen Harper
OTTAWA — As he grapples with a growing scandal over Senate expenses, Prime Minister Stephen Harper faces another potential flashpoint as the House of Commons resumes sitting: The political debate over...
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Elections Canada asks that two Tory MPs be suspended from House of Commons
OTTAWA – Two Conservative MPs are in legal limbo after Elections Canada sent letters to the Speaker of the House of Commons asking they be suspended for failure to file campaign documents from the 2011...
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MP Brent Rathgeber keen for more freedom on Hill, but rejects ‘rogue’ label
Postmedia Ottawa bureau chief Mark Kennedy conducted the following interview with then-Conservative MP Brent Rathgeber in mid-April. Here’s their conversation: OTTAWA — Conservative MP Brent Rathgeber...
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Speaking their mind: Other Conservatives who have bucked the party
OTTAWA – Now-independent MP Brent Rathgeber is not the only one who has spoken against the Conservative party line. Here are a few others: Rob Anders, Calgary West First elected in 1997 under the...
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MP’s resignation lands Stephen Harper face-to-face with his own lost ideals
OTTAWA – Of such moments, revolutions are made. Edmonton MP Brent Rathgeber’s resignation from the Conservative caucus, which dropped inside the Ottawa bubble like a little concussion grenade late...
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Harper government not co-operating with spending analysis, budget officer says
OTTAWA — The federal Conservative government continues to stonewall the Parliamentary Budget Office in its quest to obtain information on the impacts on federal programs and services of the $5.2...
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Extraordinarily, Brent Rathgeber simply did what people of principle do
It is tempting to describe the resignation of Brent Rathgeber from the Conservative caucus as an extraordinary event. And in some ways it is: It surely required extraordinary commitment to principle,...
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MP Dean Del Mastro interfering in elections investigation, witness says
OTTAWA – A witness in an Elections Canada investigation has written to Prime Minister Stephen Harper and House of Commons Speaker Andrew Scheer complaining that Conservative MP Dean Del Mastro’s...
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Sen. Mike Duffy raised the veil on Ottawa’s lush micro-culture
In Ottawa money sloshes around like water in a tub. That is the root of the new Calvinism, some might call it Puritanism, that began to sweep like a little tsunami across Parliament Hill in May. That...
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Moonlighting MPs: Where to draw the line on earning extra?
OTTAWA – Fifty years ago, a talented athlete named “Red” Kelly played professional hockey for the Toronto Maple Leafs – while holding down a job as a member of Parliament for the riding of York West....
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Senate takes a principled stand — and shows why it has to go
After this week’s vote to amend — eviscerate would be more accurate — Bill C-377, legislation passed by the House that would force labour unions to disclose their salaries and expenses, the Senate is...
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Reformers dwindling with Diane Ablonczy’s announcement she won’t run again
OTTAWA — The class of original Reform party MPs will further shrink at the next election following Diane Ablonczy’s announcement Thursday that she won’t run again. Ablonczy, the minister of state of...
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Minister Peter Kent would ‘enthusiastically embrace’ backbench role
OTTAWA – In the latest sign Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s cabinet shuffle is imminent, Environment Minister Peter Kent said on Friday that he is fine with the prospect of being demoted from cabinet...
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Many MPs will get pensions topping $100,000 a year for life
OTTAWA — Many federal politicians who decide to retire at the next election are set to walk away with millions of dollars from the lucrative parliamentary pension plan. With a cabinet shuffle expected...
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Manitoba MP’s new job raises ethics questions
OTTAWA — As the Senate draws fire over the spending habits of one of its members, the resignation of a politician in the House of Commons has prompted ethical questions of a different sort. The...
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A list of MPs’ spending on their designated travellers (2012-2013)
Here’s what members of Parliament spent last year on travel for their designated other travellers. MPs not listed made no claims for a designated person’s travel. Travel costs for dependants is not...
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