‘Not illegal’ isn’t the standard

The New Democrats insist they are the victims of a “kangaroo court.” Again. Last June, the House of Commons Board of Internal Economy (BOIE) ordered some of the party’s MPs to repay $1.13 million to Canada Post and $36,000 to the House — the cost of sending two million flyers into 26 ridings, four of which were holding by-elections. It was an improper use of parliamentary resources for partisan purposes, the BOIE ruled. The New Democrats insisted they had followed the rules, and besides, the Liberals and Conservatives do it, too.

Now the BOIE wants 68 NDP MPs to reimburse the House for $2.7 million of their office budgets that they allocated to pay workers at party offices — not constituency offices — in Quebec. The NDP says the staffers were doing parliamentary work, not party work. Again, they insist this was all above board. Again, they claim it’s just the Liberal and Conservative BOIE members ganging up on them. Again, they are threatening to appeal the matter to the Federal Court.

Disinterested Canadians will find themselves in a bit of a quandary. When it comes to spending rules, they know politicians like to skate as close to the thin ice as possible; it’s entirely conceivable the New Democrats might have fallen through. On the other hand, it’s entirely conceivable the Liberals and Conservatives were motivated primarily by spite and partisanship.

The solution is obvious: Watch the BOIE hearings, assess the evidence and testimony, and decide if anyone deserves to wear the goat horns. Except we can’t, because the BOIE operates in secret.

If this were ever a defensible practice, it is certainly not in cases like this. The allegations concern the misuse of nearly $3 million in public money. It is unconscionable that Canadians have no way to judge which politicians have misbehaved other than to take a politician’s word for it.

Both the Liberals and New Democrats have proposed change: The former to make the BOIE less secretive, the latter to outsource its business to an arm’s-length body. These are ideas worth discussing, though the notion that the House of Commons is incapable of governing its own affairs is awfully depressing. And the New Democrats’ defence, especially with regards to its partisan mail-outs, hints at a deeper malaise.

Essentially they argue they were within the rules, and that’s that. It’s a common message: It was legal for Nigel Wright to give Mike Duffy money, say Conservatives. We didn’t break the law when we talked jobs and patronage positions with a local candidate we very much wanted to drop out of the race, say Ontario Liberals. What we too rarely hear is a defence of the conduct itself — which is the basis on which voters ought to be judging the parties involved. To the taxpayer, the annoyance of having to pay for partisan junk mail would be much the same, whether it were legal or not. Very well: let the NDP defend using public money to send out partisan junk mail, on its merits. Go on, try. We’re all ears.

Perhaps it’s not surprising that people for whom “not illegal” has become the standard for defensible conduct can’t run a Board of Internal Economy very well. But if MPs won’t demand better of themselves, voters must: At minimum, the BOIE must operate, as a general rule, with its doors open.