{"id":71493,"date":"2016-02-28T04:07:18","date_gmt":"2016-02-28T09:07:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=71493"},"modified":"2016-02-28T04:07:18","modified_gmt":"2016-02-28T09:07:18","slug":"canadian-taxpayers-federation-blasts-mps-for-voting-to-increase-office-budget","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2016\/02\/28\/canadian-taxpayers-federation-blasts-mps-for-voting-to-increase-office-budget\/","title":{"rendered":"Canadian taxpayers federation blasts MPs for voting to increase office budget"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Untitled<\/a><\/p>\n

OTTAWA\u2014The Canadian Taxpayers Federation is criticizing the federal government for quietly approving a hefty increase to MPs’ office budgets.<\/p>\n

Spokesman Aaron Wudrick said it is questionable whether MPs should get $25 million more to spend on expenses when the government is facing a large deficit.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think that given the environment we are in fiscally, it will leave a bad taste in the mouth of a lot of Canadians that MPs are voting for a 20 per cent hike in their office budgets at a time that we’re going to be running possibly a $30 billion deficit,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The parliamentary committee that makes administrative and financial decisions for the House of Commons approved a 20 per cent increase to the office budgets on Dec. 10, pointing out they have been frozen since 2010.<\/p>\n

In a memo released Friday, the committee also announced a five per cent increase to the travel expense account.<\/p>\n

Wudrick said the decision should have been announced at the time it was taken.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s about transparency,\u201d he said. \u201cIf MPs had a genuine argument as to why they needed this money they should have made this public and tried to justify it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Each member’s office budget, currently set at $288,450, will increase by just under $58,000 after the changes take effect in April.<\/p>\n

House officers and presiding officers will also see their budgets rise by 20 per cent.<\/p>\n

The total cost of the increase is just under $25.4 million.<\/p>\n

According to the government’s website, the office budget pays for employee salaries, service contracts, wireless devices, some operating and travel costs, and other expenses.<\/p>\n

Wudrick said the onus should be on the federal government to justify the spending increase.<\/p>\n

\u201cWere Canadians being so terribly underserved up until this point that this money was needed? I think that’s what they need to explain,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Dan Albas, a Conservative MP from British Columbia, said he shares Wudrick’s concerns over transparency.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think the taxpayers’ federation raises a legitimate point that these kinds of decisions should be made out in the open,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

He called for the decision-making committee’s meetings to be made public when fiscal matters are being discussed.<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving more openness on matters of fiscal spending would be a good thing for the public to build faith,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Albas said that by staying frugal, he has always managed to stay within current MP budget and expense limits.<\/p>\n

\u201cFrom my own experience as a member of Parliament, especially flying from British Columbia, I always found we had the money to do what we needed to do,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

OTTAWA\u2014The Canadian Taxpayers Federation is criticizing the federal government for quietly approving a hefty increase to MPs’ office budgets. Spokesman …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":65578,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18,16],"tags":[35],"class_list":["post-71493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news-ca","category-news","tag-original","mauthors-the-canadian-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71493","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=71493"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71493\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65578"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71493"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71493"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71493"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}