MP Expenses: One spent $8 to rent a riding office; another spent $50,000.

In today’s National Post, I analyze MP’s expenses for the first half of this year.

The top line:

Members of Parliament spent a combined $71-million in the first six months of the year on travel and living expenses, running their constituency offices, promoting their activities with advertising, and buying meals and gifts for others.

Interim Opposition Leader Rona Ambrose led the way, spending just under $320,000 from January 1 to June 30, according to an exclusive National Post analysis of the expense reports of all 338 MPs.

For this project we looked at 24 separate expenses categories for all 338 MPs for the two most recent fiscal quarters. One of those categories was “Constituency leases, insurance and utilities.” At one end of the country, in the B.C. riding of Prince George–Cariboo, rookie Conservative MP Todd Doherty spent $8 on this category; at the other end of the country, in the Newfoundland riding of St. John’s East, rookie Nick Whalen spent more than $50,000 on the same thing in the first six months of the year.

Whalen, who is in Europe this week at the parliamentary assembly to the Council of Europe, wrote in overnight to explain his top billing in this category. I should note that, in the category of “Furniture, Furnishings, and Equipment,” Whalen spent not a penny from January to June:

We moved from an inaccessible space to an accessible space, which required modifications to the new space which we paid as much up front as possible. Based on a space assessment by a local group representing disabled persons, I felt the move was a requirement.  The space we moved into needed some extensive modifications, but was important, and within budget.  I also negotiated a rent formula that was flexible in terms of prepayment of the renovations or having them amortized over the lease. We paid a large amount to avoid the interest agreed in the amortization schedule. Maybe this has made me an outlier, but I still feel it was the correct decision. My rent will now be lower as a result.

Also, we opened our office right away in November, so we had the ‎full expenses of the old MPS office, plus the renovations and the move.  Some new MPS did not open their offices until January.

There was some furniture acquired after the move, which may have been included in the lease, which I can check (reception desk). This was minor.

To the extent possible, we used the existing furniture, but may have to ‎buy a new boardroom table soon.

Meanwhile, here’s the list of MPs who spent the least in this category in the first six months:

Todd Doherty and I spoke by phone late yesterday afternoon and he explained that he has had a constituency office in downtown Prince George since April 1 but the lease details have just been finalized with the landlord. They’re retroactive. So you’ll see his claim for his lease — he tells me he got the space for $600 a month — when his second quarter expenses for Fiscal 2017 are published. Doherty said he is also looking to establish satellite offices in Quesnel and Williams Lake.

Some other data points for this category:

• The average expense for all 338 MPs was $18,823.76
• By province, NL MPs had the highest average (thanks likely to Whalen) at $24,361.72. The four PEI MPs averaged the lowest at $12,252.31.
• By caucus, Liberal MPs had the highest average at $19,380 for riding leases in the first six months of the year. The Bloc Quebecois had the lowest at $16,162.

Categories: Politics

Tags: mp expenses, nick whalen, Ottawaspends, spending, todd doherty

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