A politician, he said, will earn more political capital - and a better chance at re-election — with a smaller cheque than a big one. Lord, who served two terms as premier and is one of the best retail politicians I’ve seen work a room, knew that a few thousand bucks to fix the roof at the local Legion, upgrade the kitchen at a community centre, or put in some lights at a soccer field was always going to win more votes than, say, a big announcement about a $45-million highway overpass.
Small cheques show attention to detail. And voters can get their heads around what the money is buying. Plus: it feels like a bit of a bonus. After all, governments are supposed to build highway overpasses, aren’t they? But it was the hard work of our local MP that got our Legion a little love from Ottawa!
Well, the House of Commons emptied out Friday, sending MPs back to their ridings and most will be seeking re-election this fall. Handing out cheques will be a key part of the re-election strategy of any government MP.
Only government MPs get to hand out cheques, even if the money is to be spent in a riding held by a New Democrat or Liberals. In fact, opposition MPs often find out a Conservative was in their riding handing out cheques long after they’re gone. But that’s always been the way it is. If you win government, you get to hand out the money and get the pat on the back.
Since the last general election, the champion so far among government MPs who are not cabinet ministers is Robert Goguen, the Conservative from the New Brunswick riding of Moncton-Riverview-Dieppe. That riding had been Liberal for nearly 25 years when Goguen won it in the 2011 election and he’ll need all the help he can get to hold on to it this fall. The Harper Conservatives are deeply unpopular in Atlantic Canada and if you had a quarter, I’d bet you right now that Goguen may not survive.
But, if he loses, it won’t be because he didn’t work the riding. So far he’s handed out 98 cheques with a combined value of $44.6 million since 2011, almost all for his own riding. And he’s still got a whole summer ahead of him!
He got started right way in July, 2011 with $77,000 for a skill training program at his local YMCA. And he’s kept on ever since, most recently brining home $2.7 million from Ottawa to buy new buses for Moncton transit. In between, there was money for new sewers, cash for cultural events, funds to fix up the local theatre, and, of course, cheques to upgrade local hockey arenas.
In fact, Conservative MPs turned out to be best friends of hockey arenas and community centres across the country. Since 2011, Conservative MPs have shown up with about 300 cheques worth a combined $75 million or so to fix up ailing rinks.
A typical handout would be the one Cathy McLeod, a Conservative MP from Kamloops, B.C., made in August. The arena in Kaslo, B.C. in her riding needed a new condenser and some new change rooms. McLeod was there with $46,950 from Ottawa to help out. Not a lot of money but the kind of spending that McLeod will be remembered for in Kaslo — she hopes — on election day.
McLeod, by the way, heads into the summer in second place behind Goguen in the Ottawa Spends sweepstakes. She’s had 59 handouts and counting, totalling $32 million.
In third: Scott Armstrong, fighting a tight race for re-election in northwestern Nova Scotia where’s he facing an old friend, Bill Casey. Casey was the Conservative MP for the area, became an independent, quit Parliament, and is now running for Justin Trudeau’s Liberals.
Armstrong is betting that 53 cheque handouts totalling $37 million and counting will help him keep his job.
And so it goes. All this data comes from an exclusive Sun Media database of more than 6,500 spending announcements totalling $40-billion that Conservatives have made since 2011. This summer, ahead of the election, we’ll dip in and out of that data to give you the tale of the tape. Next up: Which minister has been most active handing out cheques?
Original Article
Source: calgarysun.com/
Author: David Akin
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