WATCH ABOVE: The Conservatives set their targets on the NDP’s use of satellite offices in a new attack ad.
It seems the Conservative Party of Canada has a new target – Tom Mulcair and the NDP. The Conservatives released their first attack ad in months aimed at the NDP, targeting their alleged misappropriation of taxpayer funds for satellite offices.
The ad claims the NDP used $2.7 million from its parliamentary budgets — money intended to assist government business, not party business — to set up offices outside of Ottawa staffed with “partisan campaign staff.”
Is that true? Yes, but not entirely.
The NDP did set up satellite offices. Following a series of meetings behind closed doors, the Board of Internal Economy, which polices MPs’ spending, ruled the NDP was improperly spending money and asked the party to pay it back. The NDP disagreed with the findings and is challenging the ruling in Federal Court.
The beginning of the satellite offices
The NDP began setting up so-called “satellite offices” in 2011 after then-leader Jack Layton led the party to its unprecedented status of Official opposition.
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The first office was set up during the fall of 2011 in Montreal. Two more followed, with one in Quebec City and another in Toronto. A fourth, as the Conservative ad correctly points out, had been planned for Saskatoon — a province where the NDP has no sitting MPs. The closest NDP MP represented Edmonton.
Global News asked the NDP why they were planning on setting up an office in Saskatoon but did not receive a response by deadline.
Mulcair has insisted time and again that the staff at these offices dealt solely with parliamentary work and were segregated from political staffers.
And, when the NDP was starting these up, they were allowed. But the Board of Internal Economy changed the rules in April 2014 to “end the performance of parliamentary work and political party work from the same location.”
The Board of Internal Economy takes a look
But did the staff partake in partisan work? The NDP says no, the Liberals and the Conservatives say yes.
The Board of the Internal Economy, which governs the finances of the federal MPs, said in an August 2014 report the “employees in question were not working in a parliamentary office or a constituency office.
“Therefore, the use of parliamentary resources for employment, telecommunication and travel expenses contravenes the members by-law.”
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The cited by-law says “the funds, goods, services and premises provided by the House of Commons to a member… may only be used for carrying out the member’s parliamentary functions.”
The board report said having staffers work for more than one MP was acceptable, so long as that work was going on in Ottawa.
But the staffers, according to the board’s report, were working at a Montreal office that wasn’t a dedicated “Member’s constituency office.” So, they were sharing an office with political staffers, which was apparently not made clear to the administration.
The Conservative ad says the NDP MPs should pay back the $2.7 million. Indeed, they’ve been asked to by the Board of Internal Economy. The 68 MPs though, have not done that.
Why? Well the NDP maintains the board, which is made up of MPs from all parties, is a “kangaroo court.” The board is made up of seven MPs – four from the Conservatives, two from the NDP, and one Liberal. As a result, any decision is essentially a Conservative-endorsed one, according to the NDP.
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