NDP suing the House — and wants the House to pay for it
OTTAWA —The federal NDP wants the House of Commons to pay for the party’s legal costs in a lawsuit it has filed against the House board that monitors MP spending.
The NDP made the request Tuesday during a closed-door meeting of the Board of Internal Economy. The board is considering allegations the NDP improperly staffed party offices in Quebec with employees paid for through the House of Commons.
The board deferred a decision on these so-called satellite offices until its next meeting, after the NDP provided reams of documents to support its position that the parliamentary staff in offices rented by the NDP in Montreal and Quebec City were doing work on behalf of NDP MPs, not the party, and therefore didn’t break the rules.
Conservative whip John Duncan said the board members and House administrators need to review the new information, which was delivered an hour before the meeting.
They will meet again in late July or early August.
Earlier this summer, the board found that NDP MPs had misused House of Commons resources with partisan mailings sent to constituents and ordered them to pay back $36,000 to the House and another $1.13 million to Canada Post.
The NDP has launched a legal challenge of that decision in Federal Court and, according to a source familiar with the matter, raised the matter of who will pay for the legal fees during Tuesday’s meeting on Parliament Hill.
The lawsuit names the board and the Conservative and Liberal MPs on it as respondents. Effectively, the party has requested that the respondents in the case approve funding of the litigation against them.
It is not uncommon for the board to approve MPs’ requests to have the House cover legal fees when they are sued in their official capacity, sometimes over labour issues involving the staff in their offices. The requests are heard on a caseby-case basis.
The board did not approve the request.
It also rejected the NDP’s motion to take the in camera meeting public. The Conservatives and Liberals maintain that the board is required to meet in private because it sometimes discusses sensitive details about House employees.
Regarding the satellite-office matter, Duncan suggested the board was preparing to refer it to House of Commons administrators for potential legal action and recovery of government funds. That decision now has been put on hold.