House rules make it easy for mps to earn extra income

Loopholes allow parliamentarians ‘to lobby for their own interests’

They are landlords, lawyers, restaurateurs, store owners, consultants, investors, public speakers, corporate directors, a realtor, a chiropractor, an insurance broker, a nurse, a doctor and a club director. They are also our members of Parliament.

It was the bad optics of Liberal leader Justin Trudeau collecting hefty speaker’s fees from charities after his election to the House of Commons that incited public concern, but more than half his Parliament Hill colleagues also have done work on the side, supplementing their base salary of $160,200.

Of the 306 sitting MPs, 192 declared some form of outside income or business activity in their public disclosure declarations.

Is there anything wrong with this? Not officially.

“Members of Parliament are allowed to engage in outside activities as long as they are able to fulfil their obligations under the code,” said Lyne Robinson-Delpé, assistant commissioner in the Office of the Conflict of Interest & Ethics Commissioner.

However, the ethics office has never yet found any incident of incompatible activity, she said.

For MPs, juggling business and politics may be legal but doesn’t always work well. Jasbir Sandhu, a New Democratic Party MP for B.C.’s Surrey North, tried to keep his family’s restaurant going. He returned to work at My Village Indian Cuisine on weekends, but couldn’t devote the time needed to marketing and promotion to maintain success.

“I couldn’t pay a lot of attention to the restaurant — politics is a fulltime job,” he said. “I sold it last year. We couldn’t make it work. We decided to sell rather than lose money.”

Being an MP is hard, requiring a lot of travel, time in Ottawa away from his home and odd hours meeting constituents, he added.

“It’s a 24-hour job and it is very difficult to own and run a business and fully participate in that,” he said.

“I find it hard just being a parent as well as a member of Parliament.” His six-year-old son just asked him why he couldn’t have a regular job allowing him to be home regularly in the evening.

For others, the job they do alongside their public duties doesn’t require such hands-on devotion.

Scott Reid, a Conservative MP for Ontario’s Lanark-Frontenac-Lennox & Addington, is the son of Gordon Reid, who founded Giant Tiger, a chain of discount stores. He sits on the board of directors for the family-run company.

The board takes little time away from public duties. He also finds the work fascinating and the contribution the company makes to the community rewarding, he said.

“We face periodic election and renomination.… If we’re not giving our public duties the appropriate attention, we can be voted out,” he said.

Mr. Reid handles possible conflicts of interest by proactive discussion with the ethics commissioner.

A constituent once wanted him to raise a concern about federal regulation of the trucking industry in the House of Commons. Giant Tiger, which has a trucking line, might benefit from any change, so he took it to the commissioner first, he said.

It was deemed a matter of general application — not specific to his business interests — and was given the green light, he said.

Similarly, Scott Brison, Liberal MP for Nova Scotia’s Kings-Hants, sits on the board of directors of SeaFort Capital Inc., a Halifax investment firm, and Novista Resources, a Torontobased merchant bank investing in natural resources.

“There is a big difference between working with the day-to-day operations of a company and sitting as a non-executive member of a board. The principal difference is the amount of time involved,” he said. “My role as a director of a company strengthens my role as a member of Parliament, as it keeps me thinking fresh, ensuring exposure to real-world investments and gives me a better understanding of economic realities.”

Many other MPs earn extra money in other ways.

Rental income is popular — dozens of MPs, including ministers Diane Ablonczy, minister of state of foreign affairs and MP for CalgaryNose Hill, and Steven Blaney, minister of veterans affairs and MP for Lévis-Bellechasse, declared rental income.

Landlords cut across party lines, including: Olivia Chow (NDP, Trinity-Spadina), Mauril Bélanger (Liberal, Ottawa-Vanier) and Rob Anders (Conservative, Calgary West).

Leon Benoit (Conservative, Vegreville-Wainwright) drew income from farm crops, Alexandre Boulerice (NDP, Rosemont-La Petite-Patrie) from the Canadian Union of Public Employees, Sean Casey (Liberal, Charlottetown) has holdings in several companies, including his law firm, and Elizabeth May (Green, Saanich-Gulf Islands) declared in- come as leader of the Green Party of Canada, for example.

What is not known is how much outside income any of the MPs earned, since the value of the income is not made public. (Some of their declarations likely include time before they were elected and some refer to pension income accrued from previous employment.)

For Duff Conacher, director of Democracy Watch, the MPs’ code of conduct is essentially meaningless because “a huge loophole” prevents it having real impact on good governance. “It looks great until you read the definitions,” he said.

The code changed when Paul Martin became prime minister. It used to be MPs couldn’t even have the “appearance of ” conflict of interest, said Mr. Conacher. Mr. Martin, a shipping magnate with immense business interests, saw the “appearance of ” clause removed, making it only restrict pure conflict of interest.

Further, the regulations say even if an MP will benefit financially, as long as it is a matter of “general applica- tion,” it is not considered a conflict. That means an MP can own a small bank and still vote and debate banking regulations because the laws apply to all banks.

“So the conflict of interest rules do not actually apply to 99% of what MPs do. It allows MPs to essentially lobby for their own interests,” Mr. Conacher said. “To think that your own financial position doesn’t affect your judgment, when you know you could make a bunch of money if you decide one way and lose a bunch if you decide another, or your family or friends could, of course it affects your psychology.”

Ms. Robinson-Delpé said the ethics office has no power of enforcement. “The only enforcement available is an investigation, right now. The code doesn’t have penalties. If a member does not tell us something, unfortunately, there are no penalties,” she said.

While the office requires disclosure, it cannot prevent an MP from participating in a vote or discussion. After all, it is the MPs themselves who establish the rules they must follow. “The members are the authority over the code. We can’t even issue guidelines without vetting it,” she said.