PM vetoed deal on NDP offices: sources

OTTAWA• Justin Trudeau has vetoed an out- of- court settlement in the long- running dispute over the NDP’s allegedly improper use of parliamentary resources for partisan purposes, The Canadian Press has learned.

Multiple sources, not authorized to speak publicly about the matter, say a proposed deal was almost sealed but was nixed by the prime minister, who didn’t want to condone what he sees as an abuse of taxpayers’ money.

Sixty- eight former and current New Democrat MPs were ruled two years ago to have improperly used $ 2.75 million from their parliamentary office budgets to pay the salaries of staff working in satellite party offices in Montreal, Quebec City and Toronto.

The board of internal economy—the secretive, multi-party body that polices House of Commons spending — ordered the MPs to reimburse the money. But the New Democrats, maintaining t hey were victims of a partisan gang- up by Conservatives and Liberals on the board, launched a court challenge and the matter remained unresolved through last fall’s election.

After the election, both the victorious Liberals, who now hold a majority of seats on the reconstituted board, and the much- diminished NDP initially seemed will- ing to settle the matter out of court.

Rather than seek reimbursement from the 68 individuals, the majority of whom lost their incomes when they were defeated in the election, sources say a settlement was proposed that would have seen the NDP accept a reduction in its annual parliamentary research budget.

That reduction would have amounted to a reimbursement of less than half the $2.75 million.

The matter will now have to be resolved in Federal Court, where the NDP’s suit to overturn the board’s ruling has been languishing for almost two years.

The suit was suspended almost immediately after it was launched at the request of both sides as they took a first stab at negotiating an out- of- court settlement. Those talks went nowhere and the board’s lawyer, Guy Pratte, asked last May that the suspension be lifted.

Pratte has since filed a motion to dismiss the case on the grounds that the court has no jurisdiction to second- guess decisions of the board. A hearing was scheduled for this May but, at the request of the NDP’s lawyer, that has been delayed until Sept. 13.

New Democrats have maintained from the outset that administrators wildly inflated the amount of money each MP contributed from their office budgets to the salaries of the satellite office employees.

That appears to have been borne out in about half a dozen cases where New Democrats have challenged the amount they had been told to repay.