MPS SPEND $ 71M ON FLIGHTS, OFFICES

• Members of Parliament spent a combined $ 71 million in the first six months of the year on travel and living expenses, running t heir constituency offices, promoting t heir activities with advertising, and buying meals and gifts for others.

Interim Opposition Leader Rona Ambrose led the way, spending just under $320,000 from Jan. 1 to June 30, according to an exclusive National Post analysis of the expense reports of all 338 MPs.

The analysis also found: A pair of Liberal MPs spent $ 40,000 on smartphones, laptops and other technological gear. An Alberta Conservative MP spent $ 65,000 on “repairs and maintenance” of a riding office. A St. John’s Liberal MP spent $ 50,000 in just six months on the lease of his constituency office while, at the other end of the country, in Prince George, B.C., a Conservative MP spent all of $ 8 in six months for “constituency lease, insurance and utilities.”

Information on how MPs spend money has only been made public since the 201415 fiscal year. The information is published online by the Library of Parliament, but in a way that makes it difficult or impossible to compare spending among groups of MPs or across any one of 24 different expense categories.

The Post created its own database incorporating all those expense categories for all 338 MPs over the course of the two most recent fiscal quarters for which information is available.

Having organized the data differently than the Library of Parliament, the Post can report that no MP racked up more expenses in the first six months of the year than Ambrose.

Her total of $ 319,180.54 was well above the average f or all her Alberta colleagues, which was $227,851.16.

One of the largest components of Ambrose’s spending was her travel bill.

“She’s made a concerted effort to visit every part of the country since becoming leader of the Opposition,” said Mike Storeshaw, Ambrose’s director of communications.

The travel component alone for Ambrose was nearly $ 92,000 from January to June, which works out to more than $15,000 a month. The bill included $26,000 so her designated traveller, her partner J. P. Veitch, could fly with her.

House of Commons rules, set by MPs themselves, allow an MP to allocate some of their authorized travel resources for a designated traveller ( usually a spouse), dependants and employees.

Aaron Wudrick, a former Conservative political staffer who is now the national director of the Canadian Taxpayers’ Federation, said there’s a question as to whether Ambrose is using taxpayer- funded travel for partisan political work.

“I would certainly expect the leader of a party to travel more, but the question is who is supposed to pay for that,” Wudrick. “I think when we talk about travel budgets for members of Parliament, the only things that should really bear on how much each is spending is how far they are from Ottawa.”

Thomas Mulcair, t he NDP leader, spent $ 58,782 on travel in the same period, including $ 5,527 spent on his designated traveller. The average travel bill for all Quebec MPs was $11,861.

Green party Leader Elizabeth May, whose Vancouver Island riding of Saanich— Gulf Islands is among the farthest from Ottawa, spent just $ 25,882 on travel and none for a designated traveller, versus the average for all B.C. MPs of $48,969.

As prime minister, Justin Trudeau’s travel and living expense bill is paid out of the budget for the Prime Minister’s Office.

Only one MP spent more on the travel bill for their designated traveller than Ambrose and that was B.C. Conservative MP Todd Doherty. The first- time MP spent just over $ 29,000 between January and June so that his wife Kelly could travel with him.

The average for all B. C. MPs on spending for designated travellers was just $5,548.

The commute between Doherty’s central B. C. ridi ng of Cariboo— Pri nce George and Parliament Hill is among the longest any MP makes and the travel bills for MPs from central and northern B. C. tend always to be among the highest.

But while Doherty spent tens of thousands on travel, he spent a pittance on an ex- pense category called “Constituency Leases, Insurance, and Utilities.” For the first six months of the year, he claimed just $8.

St. John’s East MP Nick Whalen, a Liberal, spent the most of any MP in this category: $ 50,120. The average lease cost for all MPs was $18,823.

But while Whalen paid top dollar on his lease, he was among 29 MPs that spent nothing on furniture, furnishings and new equipment.

Six other Liberal MPs, though, each spent more than $20,000 on furnishings for their riding office. Leading the way was Montrealarea MP Angelo Iacono who spent $26,462 furnishing his riding office after defeating a New Democrat MP last fall. The average among all MPs was just $ 3,717 and 29 MPs made no claims for furniture.

Arnold Viersen, the Conservative elected last fall in the Alberta riding of Peace River—Westlock, has spent more than $ 65,000 so far this year on “repairs and maintenance.” Sven Spengemann, a Liberal from Mississauga, Ont., has spent more than $62,000 on repairs. The average was just $4,299 and 78 MPs spent nothing on repairs.

Two other Liberals, Mississauga’s Iqra Khalid and Nepean, Ont.’ s Chandra Arya, led all MPs in spendi ng on “informatics and telecommunications equipment,” claiming $ 21,059 and $ 19,840 respectively or about five times the average of $ 4,122. This category of spending is reserved for the purchase of computers and smartphones to be used by the MP and their staff.

By rule, incoming MPs should use the capital assets — desks, chairs, computers and so on — that were used by the MP they replaced.

Other than declaring the sum for each expense category, no other details are required to be posted online.

THE QUESTION IS WHO IS SUPPOSED TO PAY FOR THAT.