Leader in line for budget boost
Funds to replace Privy Council Office resources
— The Senate proposes adding more than half a million dollars to the office budget of government Senate leader Claude Carignan, almost tripling what he was originally supposed to receive from the red chamber.
The plan would also double the spending envelope for the Senate’s opposition leader, Liberal Sen. James Cowan.
Under the proposal currently before the Senate’s internal economy committee, $555,000 would be added to Carignan’s office budget. That would raise the funding the Senate provides the government leader’s office to about $855,000, from approximately $300,000.
But it isn’t an overall gain in funding. The $555,000 is meant to cover an actual funding loss Carignan’s office faces since the Conservative government decided last year that the government House leader in the Senate would no longer be in cabinet. His predecessor, Sen. Marjory LeBreton, was a member of Stephen Harper’s cabinet.
The downgrade left Carignan with fewer responsibilities and made him ineligible for hundreds of thousands of dollars in funding normally available through the Privy Council Office.
According to the most recent version of the Public Accounts, LeBreton received just under $600,000 from the Privy Council Office, which, combined with what she received from the Senate itself, provided her a total office budget of about $900,000.
“I was like a minister of state,” LeBreton said. “It was to pay for certain staffers who were there … in connection with my cabinet duties.”
Overall, Carignan will have about $45,000 less to spend on his office in the 2014-15 fiscal year than LeBreton had, but the funding burden shifts from Privy Council Office to the Senate.
“It’s (almost) exactly the same amount (as) this year,” Carignan said of his allotment from the Senate itself. “I didn’t raise my budget. It’s less.”
Carignan said the money would pay for the staff that run his office — which according to government listings is 14, including six who are parliamentary affairs advisers. He said that he had fewer people in his office than LeBreton had.
According to government records, LeBreton had five staff when she first took the leader’s office in 2006, and eight staff by the time she stepped down as leader in July 2013.
By the end of February, the internal economy committee likely will make a recommendation on the Senate’s budget for the coming fiscal year, which begins April 1. The recommended budget will require approval from the whole Senate.
Meanwhile, according to the proposed budget, opposition leader Cowan’s office — with its staff of five — could receive a bump of $200,000, almost doubling his funding to about $400,000. That would pay for additional research staff who help the Liberal Senate caucus review legislation and draft policy.
“The proposed increase would bring our budget closer to what is available to the Senate government leader, who is responsible for moving the government’s legislation through the Senate,” Cowan said in a statement to Postmedia News.
“My responsibility is to help hold the government accountable by ensuring that government measures are properly scrutinized, and that requires resources.”