Long-time readers will know that one of my pet peeves is the propensity for my media colleagues to push cheap outrage stories, to trigger the hairshirt parsimony and tall poppy syndrome of the Canadian public, and lo, they did it again with the screaming headline that taxpayers footed the bill for $4.5 million in MP spousal travel over four years. Which is actually not a lot, particularly when you consider that we’re a big country, and that airfare is expensive here because of our duopolistic air carriers and lack of population density.

People: It’s terrible that MPs have to spend so much time away from their families. We should make Parliament more family-friendly.
Also people: OMG LOOK HOW MUCH OF OUR MONEY YOU’RE SPENDING ON SPOUSAL TRAVEL!
This hairshirt parsimony that we engage in is gross. https://t.co/zWERxmL2Nz

— Dale Smith (@journo_dale) September 10, 2019

Of course, when I tweeted this out, I had all kinds of people yelling at me that Bill Morneau’s millionaire wife shouldn’t be eligible for sponsored spousal travel. The problem with this kind of qualifier is that it when you start qualifying who is and isn’t eligible for the benefits based on personal circumstances, you start running into the mentality that plagued the UK for centuries – that MPs were poorly compensated and essentially needed to be independently wealthy before they stood for office. We’ve seen enough people suggest that the Canadian Senate be run this way, with the ludicrous suggestion that it be a volunteer position. I would also add that the divorce rate for MPs is several times above the national average – if we start begrudging their ability to travel with their spouses to Ottawa and back, particularly if the distances are fairly large ones – we’d see even more divorces, or a pervasive belief that people with families shouldn’t run for office. I’m not sure who that would benefit.

Throughout this bit of cheap outrage, Jody Wilson-Raybould’s spousal flights were singled out in a separate piece about cabinet ministers and their spouses’ travel costs. That a Vancouver MP’s costs would be higher should be no surprise, and it could very well be that they are higher because they may have been booked last-minute rather than in advance (given that they are simply treated by the MP and their spouse as points rather than being given a dollar figure as their expenses limit). Suffice to say, these kinds of stories are pretty gross when you stop and think about it, and the performative outrage over taxpayer dollars that are packaged in a way to look big and without sufficient context is one of the biggest problems we have in Canadian politics, and why we make the lives of our MPs so miserable.

Good reads:

• Justin Trudeau heads to Rideau Hall this morning to make the official election call, and the writs – all 338 of them – will be drawn up.
• Trudeau and several ministers were in Halifax to survey damage from Hurricane Dorian, and to see clean-up efforts being made by the Canadian Forces.
• The government announced their long-awaited Pay Equity Commissioner just in time for the writs being issued.
• A class-action lawsuit has been launched against the Canadian Forces alleging abuse in the programme they ran for young offenders.
• Nearly a third of MPs have trackers embedded in their websites to ensure that it allows for targeted ads.
• The Liberals have screened out the wife of outgoing MP Geng Tan as a candidate to replace him in Don Valley North (amidst the allegations of Tan’s affair).
• Apparently Andrew Scheer has a campaign song, written by one of Bryan Adams’ co-writers.
• Here’s a look at what Jagmeet Singh needs to do in order to turn his party fortunes around in the election.
• The NPD are proposing to make a “super wealth tax” an election platform issue, and had the PBO vet the promise (but Jennifer Robson casts some doubt in this thread).
• NDP MP-turned Green Candidate Pierre Nantel is calling for Quebec Separation (and praising Bill 21), and the Greens say that’s fine because national unity is not policy.
• Despite Green protests that they don’t allow anti-abortion candidates, CBC found two of them, and the party shrugged.
• The Rhinoceros Party is running a candidate named Maxime Bernier against Maxime Bernier in Beauce.
• Brian Pallister’s Progressive Conservatives won another majority in Manitoba, but lost seats in the process.
• Jason Kenney has launched a constitutional challenge against Bill C-69.
• Heather Scoffield writes about the era of cheap borrowing for governments, and why that has changed the conversation about fiscal discipline.
• Chris Selley sighs over an election over small differences while the media is too happy to be distracted by things the parties throw in the window (like abortion).
• My column looks at the Brexit omnishambles and picks out some of the heartening parts (parliament doing its job!) and gives a few warnings of things to come.

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