Roundup: Trudeau offers a refund

Justin Trudeau says that he’s going to “make it right” with that charity that wants him to repay his speaking fee after their event flopped – though the fact that they’d still be in the hole even if he repays the whole amount is indication that there are more significant problems with that charity. Trudeau says that he’s going to show leadership by working with any charity that feels that they didn’t get their money’s worth from him, and repay them if necessary because it’s the “right thing to do.” To which the Conservatives debuted a new attack line that “Justin Trudeau’s favourite cause is…Justin Trudeau.” Bravo, guys. The move does raise a few questions, such as whether he’s now obligated to pay back any charity that can’t get their own affairs in order when they book him for events, and why a speaking fee is any different from say a caterer or venue. Questions have also been raised about the Grace Foundation, who demanded the repayment, after it was discovered that they have been a recipient of several million dollars of government money that was spent almost entirely on staff and administration, and the connections of senior board members with the PMO, and whether those had anything to do with the demand for the money over nine months after the event, while the Liberal leadership campaign was well underway. Aaron Wherry looks at the issue of speaking fees – of which many a Conservative senator also charge – and whether banning parliamentarians from having an outside income will really be that great of an outcome in the long run.

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Roundup: A question of speaking fees

The desire to try and tarnish Justin Trudeau’s reputation took a somewhat bizarre twist yesterday as a New Brunswick charity decided to demand that Trudeau repay them for a speech they paid him for a year ago after the event they held flopped and they lost money. Odd that they asked nine months later, and that they are the party that wants to renege on a contract that they signed with the speaker’s bureau that Trudeau operates from, and that they seem to fail to understand that their failure to sell enough tickets to their event isn’t their own fault, but there you have it. (Also, as Scott Brison pointed out, they seemed thrilled by the event at the time). And never mind that this is all above board, that several other MPs and Senators also give speeches through the speaker’s bureau and that this has all been vetted by the Ethics Commissioner, and never mind the fact that Trudeau himself has been entirely above board and given an extremely high level of disclosure and transparency. These facts apparently don’t matter as the Conservatives have decided to characterise this as “millionaire” Trudeau “ripping-off charities.” And to make things all the more bizarre, Saskatchewan premier Brad Wall decided to join the pile-on and both demanded that Trudeau return the same fee he was paid to speak at a literacy conference in Saskatchewan, and then insinuated that he used the funds to bankroll his leadership campaign (to which his office demanded an apology, citing that all of his campaign expenses were above board and cleared by Elections Canada – and Wall offered a non-apology in return). Funnily enough, that same literacy conference didn’t demand the money back and thought that Trudeau was worth every penny.

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Roundup: The RCMP officially get involved

The big news yesterday was that the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner, Mary Dawson, has suspended her probe into the Wright-Duffy affair as the RCMP have begun a formal investigation into the matter. And then the RCMP confirmed this fact. So it’s all getting very real, ladies and gentlemen. It’s now in the big leagues, though it further gives the Conservatives an out from commenting on matters (“as this is an ongoing police investigation, it would be inappropriate to comment” will be the new line in QP). On a not-unrelated note, Liberal Senator Joseph Day is starting a campaign to close that loophole in the Conflict of Interest Act that allows public office holders to accept “gifts” including cash from friends without reporting it. Day also noted that they tried to close this loophole back in 2006 when the Accountability Act was first being debated, but the Conservatives and NDP struck it down.

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Roundup: Denying consent for transparency

After QP yesterday, Justin Trudeau rose to seek unanimous consent for his four motions on greater transparency for parliament – MPs posting expenses, opening up Internal Economy, and calling in the Auditor General. None of them passed, and apparently it was the NDP who denied consent (though some reporters heard Conservatives dissent despite the party line being that they were in favour). What did pass was a motion from Nathan Cullen that would ban MPs from using their travel points to go to speaking gigs, as apparently the latest bout of Trudeau bashing is to assert that he apparently used his MP expenses to do speaking gigs, despite there not being any evidence to support this, and the fact that most speaking gigs include airfare as a standard part of the deal.

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Roundup: Ineligible expenses? Abolish the Commons!

Oh dear – Conservative MP Eve Adams was found to have claimed hair and nail salon visits to her election expenses, as well as personal grooming products like toothpaste, mouthwash and brushes. $2777 worth of expenses in fact, when the limit Election Canada will allow a candidate to claim is $200. But seeing as we have MPs being accused of improperly claiming elections expenses, I guess it means that the whole institution is corrupt to the core and it’s time to abolish the Commons. “Roll up the green carpet!” as the slogan goes. And the fact that she’s still in caucus and hasn’t been excommunicated for all time? Tsk, tsk. It’s just MPs trying to cover for the entitlements of their buddies. (You see where this argument goes, right?)

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Roundup: Schrödinger’s secret fund

The drama of the “secret” party fund won’t let go as government MPs keep contradicting themselves. One minute there’s no fund, then there is one, but it’s the same as the rest of the Conservative Fund, so no story here, then on Saturday, Chris Alexander says it’s the same Fund, but some funds are administered by the PMO because they deal with his schedule… And yeah. It continues to confuse because nobody can get their messaging right.

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Roundup: Vehemently denying the existence of a secret fund

The Conservatives are vehemently denying that there is a “secret” party fund in the PMO as CBC has reported – that there is only one party fund, and that the party uses it to reimburse the Prime Minister’s expenses when he engages in party business. Thomas Mulcair himself decided to show up for the first question in Friday QP – something he has never done – as a kind of stunt to impress upon the public as to just how big of an issue this “secret fund” is, even though party funds are not government operations and therefore not the domain of QP. (CBC is standing by their story, for the record). In fact, all parties pay for their leaders’ partisan activities, yet questions remain as to whether or not Nigel Wright had access to it as Chief of Staff. Senator Hugh Segal, who was Prime Minister Brian Mulroney’s Chief of Staff between 1992 and 1993, said that in his day, they would simply bill the Fund or the Party for the expenses, not draw the funds directly.

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Roundup: Rathgeber wins the day

It really was Brent Rathgeber’s day yesterday, from the very start when CBC’s Laura Payton caught up with him at the airport, and he said a lot of wonderfully civically literate things about the role of backbenchers to act as a check on the executive, and how executive control nowadays has bled so far into the committee system that it is a threat to our Westminster-style democracy. Rathgeber explained more on his blog, and his intention to largely vote with the Conservatives going forward, but will evaluate all decisions on a case-by-case basis. At the press conference he called in his riding, he also put the boots to the PMO, basically saying that they run themselves without involving Harper, which really makes one wonder who is running the show, since they’re the ones writing the scripts that they expect the backbenchers to read. Colby Cosh looks at the seven Conservative MPs who were responsible for gutting Rathgeber’s bill in committee. The one who moved the amendments, Brad Butt, gave Huffington Post an excuse that it was to avoid big bureaucracy getting involved, and to try it at the most senior levels first, but it seems fairly nonsensical.

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Roundup: Exit Brent Rathgeber from caucus

In amidst the votes on the Estimates last night, a bombshell was dropped – Conservative MP Brent Rathgeber, lately called something of a maverick because he had become conversant and vocal about civically literate things like the roles of backbenchers, resigned from the Conservative caucus. What precipitated this was his bill on salary disclosures for public servants, which his own caucus gutted in committee. After what seemed to be a fairly brief period of consideration, Rathgeber decided that his party no longer stood for transparency and open government, and that enough was enough. The PM’s comms director tweeted shortly thereafter that Rathgeber should run in a by-election – which is a ridiculous position because a) he didn’t cross the floor, b) this was never an issue when David Emerson, Joe Commuzzi or Wajid Kahn cross the floor to the Conservatives, and c) people elect MPs, not robots to be stamped with the part logo once the votes are counted. As reactions continued to pour in, it does continue the narrative that not all is well in the Conservative party.

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Roundup: The moral panic of campaigning Senators

The Toronto Star has a look at Senators who were reimbursed by various campaigns for work they did during the last election, which seems a bit curious because it’s not unusual that Senators campaign – they just can’t bill the Senate for those expenses, as Mike Duffy did. Not that it’s stopped the NDP from making a giant fuss about it, as though it’s a bad thing that party members help out in a campaign. “Oh, but they shouldn’t campaign at all!” they cry. “They’re on the taxpayer’s payroll!” Um, so are MPs, who also fundraise and do campaign activities outside of writ periods of all sorts. And some of them go to fundraisers while they should be in Ottawa as the House is sitting. And leaders? Well, they’re the worst when it comes to missing House duty for fundraisers and campaigning. They’re also on the public dime. It’s a kind of hypocritical and nonsensical argument that seems to ignore the fact that *gasp!* senators are also party members and partisans! You know, the way our system of government works, where you have governing and opposition parties in both chambers! In other words, the NDP is trying to create a moral panic, which should be paid little heed unless it can be proved that any of the Senators who campaigned billed the Senate for their expenses. And I have little doubt that none of them other than Duffy – and possibly Pamela Wallin – did.

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