It is a “mistake” to continue to freeze MPs’ office budgets for the next three years because Members of Parliament will become less relevant to Canadians, say some MPs.“They may be leaving them at the same levels, but they’re … nickel and diming us everywhere they can in a variety of different ways,” said Liberal MP Judy Sgro (York West, Ont.). “I think it’s a mistake. Part of the importance of federal Members of Parliament is their ability to communicate with their constituents on what they’re doing and so forth. For them to be cutting back the way that they are doing just makes it tougher for us to be relevant in the lives of our constituents.”
The secretive Commons Board of Internal Economy, chaired by House Speaker Andrew Scheer (Regina-Qu’Appelle, Sask.), decided in September 2012 to reverse its initial strategic and operating review plans to reduce the $284,700 basic annual MPs’ office budgets (MOB) by approximately two per cent each year over a three-year plan, as part of the House’s efforts to find a total of $30.3-million in savings from its overall $441-million annual budget by 2014, but instead, office budgets will be frozen at 2011 levels until 2014-15.
Chief Government Whip Gordon O’Connor (Carleton-Mississippi Mills, Ont.), a spokesperson for the BOIE, said MPs “have a responsibility to meet the needs of their constituents,” in a Dec. 11 post-QP scrum. He announced that the savings that would have been achieved by reducing MOBs had been found elsewhere in the House of Commons. Heather Bradley, communications director to Mr. Scheer, confirmed the $30.3-million in savings from the House of Common’s budget will still be achieved by 2014 through other routes.
In addition to Mr. Scheer and Mr. O’Connor, the BOIE is made up of NDP Whip Nycole Turmel (Hull-Aylmer, Que.), NDP House Leader Nathan Cullen (Skeena-Bulkley Valley, B.C.), Liberal Whip Judy Foote (Random-Burin-St. George’s, Nfld.), Conservative MP Rob Merrifield (Yellowhead, Alta.), and Government House Leader Peter Van Loan (York-Simcoe, Ont.).
The House’s central budget is being trimmed down in a number of ways, but some of those changes mean costs are being unloaded to MPs’ office budgets. For example, the approximately $311,000 annual cost of language training for political staffers, previously covered by the House central budget, is now a cost to be assumed by MPs.
In September, the BOIE also decided to shift responsibility and payment for employee vacation pay and payment in lieu of to MOBs instead of central House administration. According to Mr. O’Connor the BOIE had “found some instances” of the House double-paying staff; it was anticipated that making MPs responsible would avoid such instances continuing.
“They’re squeezing us down on a continuous basis,” Ms. Sgro said, noting that budgets have been frozen for years but expenses continue to rise and MPs’ staff are not receiving raises.
“It’s not as prime, great a job as a lot of people used to think it was, and hanging on to our staff continues to be a challenge when you can’t give them an increase, and they’re not getting any huge pay to begin with, in relevance to the fact of how many hours they put in and the kind of services that they have to provide,” said Ms. Sgro, adding that since the cuts to frontline services such as Immigration and Service Canada made last spring, the workload for her staff has increased.
Ms. Sgro said she had to reduce her constituency office staff from four to two last year due to budgetary restraints.
MOBs were frozen in 2010 at 2009 levels (the current, $284,700 basic annual budget), and were set to unfreeze this 2012 fiscal year. Now with the BOIE’s change in plans—from reduction to a continued freeze—office budgets will stay at this level until 2014.
As set out in the MPs’ Allowances and Services Manual, MOBs are meant to cover constituency office leases, the operating costs of an MPs Hill and constituency offices, all staff salaries, local riding travel, and advertising, as well as other office costs. MPs with larger-than-average ridings, in terms of population or geography, are provided supplementary budgets.
But some MPs said they are relieved the BOIE decided to freeze rather than reduce MPs’ budgets.
“I think we’re already quite pushed, in terms of the work that the staff does, both in the riding and in Ottawa, and so I was concerned about how we would manage that. So now if it’s a freeze instead of a cut, I think we’ll be able to serve our constituents better,” said Liberal MP John McCallum (Markham-Unionville, Ont.).
Conservative MP Rob Anders (Calgary West, Alta.) said he’s “generally a fan of smaller government,” and said he had no problem when the plan was to reduce MOBs.
In addition to the costs that have since been uploaded to MPs’ office budgets, last March the BOIE announced other ways for the House to save.
As of April 1, 2013, all MPs will be required to purchase flight passes, made up of 10 flights, for all regular point travel. MPs are allocated 64 travel points each year for “regular” travel between Ottawa and their constituency, but they also have the option to use 25 of those points for “special” travel. By next April, instead of buying a ticket for each trip, MPs will purchase flight passes that include 10 trips, meaning they save by buying in bulk.
In addition to this, MPs whose trips are under two hours are now restricted to the Tango Plus fare class, while MPs are still eligible to fly business class (Air Canada’s “Latitude” class) for trips more than two hours in length. MPs are also restricted to the Tango Plus class when using “special” travel points.
But the response from MPs to these changes is also mixed.
Liberal MP Kevin Lamoureux (Winnipeg North, Man.) said the flight passes are beneficial because they cut out what he said had been a laborious reimbursement process for MP flights. “I suspect that if I could just go and purchase the economy ticket over the internet and then get reimbursed for it directly, that probably would be cheaper than a flight pass,” he said. “I don’t think it’s as simple as just saying flight passes are the answer in all situations. Hopefully they’ve done their homework and overall there will be improvement in how much we’re spending.”
Mr. McCallum said he thought the passes were “a good move” because they save money without restricting travel.
But Ms. Sgro said the new requirement to purchase the Tango Plus class for under two-hour travel, could result in extra costs to the government because of unforeseen itinerary changes.
“I mean rarely does the flight I booked on Monday morning or Thursday night go through without having to make a change,” she said, noting that with Air Canada’s Tango Plus fare, there is a $100 fee to make changes.
“I did alert the whips to this,” said Ms. Sgro, who said the business class travel was more flexible. “Otherwise, I’m happy.”
The BOIE has also announced the House’s aim to reduce the printing of Parliamentary publications by 80 per cent by September 2013, as part of efforts to find the $30.3-million in savings from the House. In 2012, these printing reductions are expected to save $623,000, and achieve a savings of $1.3-million by 2014.
As of January 2013, Parliamentary publications (except government bills) will only be available to the press gallery in electronic format; publications will no longer be distributed to MPs’ offices; Private Members’ bills will only be in electronic format; copies provided to the Chamber will be reduced to the minimum required; distribution counters in the House and Senate will receive 50 per cent fewer copies; and committees have also been asked to try and reduce the number of printed copies of their reports.
These reductions will also mean the closure of the printing service counters at 131 Queen Street and in the Confederation Building; the service counter in Centre Block will stay open. Ms. Bradley said full-time employees from those now-defunct printing counters “will be deployed elsewhere,” while part-time employees would experience a “significant reduction in hours.”
Most MPs said the decision to reduce printing was a good one.
Mr. Lamoureux said the daily Order Paper of the day’s proceedings is the only item he regularly uses in a hard copy, paper format, and said beyond leaders, House leaders and critics, it’s “not necessary” for everyone to get a hard copy of bills.
“Personally I think it’s fantastic,” said Mr. Lamoureux. “Given the resources that we do have to print our own copies, it is exceptionally wasteful. … You go to some of these recycle bins and the books aren’t even open. It’s just tossed right in.”
Mr. Anders said reducing Parliamentary printing was a “wonderful” idea.
“We get sent a lot of stuff, mounds. Every MP’s office, every week probably, receives something like a foot, maybe even every day we receive that much, and our staff has to triage through that to figure out what the Member wants to see and not, and a lot of that stuff in most offices, lets not kid ourselves, most of that stuff winds up in the round filing cabinet, the waste paper basket, and it’s sad,” said Mr. Anders.
But Ms. Sgro said there are many MPs, including herself, who still prefer to use paper—“just like you read a newspaper, instead of electronically,” she said—and said she thinks the government has reduced access in its efforts to reduce printing.
“Printing, the reason you do all of this is so people know what’s going on. They don’t want people to know what’s going on, they only want people to get their message,” said Ms. Sgro.
Original Article
Source: hill times
Author: Laura Ryckewaert
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