Liberals busy giving out cheques
Trudeau government outpaces previous Tories when it comes to funding announcements
OTTAWA — The Trudeau government has just marked its 3,000th spending announcement and, in doing so, has shown itself to be much more adroit in getting its MPs to hand out cheques than its predecessor.
The majority Harper government of the 41st Parliament didn’t make its 3,000th announcement until nearly two years into its mandate, on March 11, 2013. During the four-year 41st Parliament, Conservative MPs made 7,307 spending announcements, a total that Liberal MPs, at their current pace, should easily eclipse early in the third year of their mandate.
That said, the Harper Conservatives moved more money out the door even though they made fewer announcements. By end of day on Friday — 396 days since last fall’s election — Liberal MPs had made 3,030 announcements funding projects worth a combined $18.9 billion.
It took the Harper Conservatives just 72 days after the May 2, 2011 election for that government to eclipse $18.9 billion in spending announcements.
The spending announcement figures are culled from a database maintained exclusively by the National Post that draws from the thousands of press releases issued by the government over the last eight years in which government MPs and ministers take credit for the allocation of a grant, contribution, or loan from the federal treasury. And it is always government MPs who get their names on the press releases when a cheque is handed out. Opposition MPs are never mentioned even when the project to be funded is in an opposition riding.
The 3,000th announcement from the current government occurred Thursday when Environment Minister Catherine McKenna, at the COP22 climate change conference in Marrakech, Morocco, announced $3 million to the World Bank Transformative Carbon Asset Facility.
Other recent spending announcements include $54 million in aid for Haiti, announced Friday by International Development Minister MarieClaude Bibeau during a visit to Portau-Prince.
But the Trudeau government, like the Harper government before it, has plenty of money for smaller projects. For example, Liberal MP Nick Whalen had a few cheques to hand out Friday in the Newfoundland and Labrador community of Torbay, including one for $150,250 for the local Kinsmen’s club to build a splash pad for kids.
The money is drawn from a $300-million Parliament-approved pool of money for projects to mark Canada’s 150th anniversary in 2017.
The fund was established by the Harper Conservatives in its 2015 budget and was, at the time, denounced by Liberal MPs Adam Vaughan and Judy Sgro as nothing more than a “slush fund” for Conservative MPs.
But once in office, the Liberals kept the Canada 150 fund going.
The National Post database has logged 155 Canada 150 spending announcements worth a combined $27.9 million for projects in Liberal ridings. Just 15 announcements worth a combined $876,000 have been announced for projects in ridings held by Conservatives and 21 Canada 150 announcements worth $1,078,780 have been announced for NDP ridings.