Once a year, Parliament's Ethics Comissioner publishes a list of all the trips that MPs took that were paid by a third party.[PDF] There's a good point behind this: If MPs are making decisions about this issue or that issue, we want to know if third parties that might be affected by those decisions were busy flying so-and-so all around the world. Why do we want to know that? So we, the public, can compare an MPs position on an issue against some free trips they might receive. If MPs know their travel record is up for public scrutiny, that ought to act as a check against any kind of corrupting influence.
And so, as my colleague Glen McGregor reported today:
Jet-setting Canadian MPs last year accepted more than $432,000 in travel costs paid for by foreign governments, lobby groups and other organizations.
Fifty-three MPs took freebie trips in 2009 – often accompanied by spouses – to destinations such as India, France, Italy, Kenya, Jamaica, Greece, and China, among others.
Jim Karygiannis, a Liberal MP from Scarborough, Ont., topped the list of frequent flyers, with $35,500 in transportation and accommodations paid for by groups such as the Canada Kurdistan Business Council and Lobby for Cyprus.
During the year, Karygiannis made three trips to China for speaking engagements and also squeezed in excursions to India, Cyprus, Greece, Kurdistan, Iraq, Belgium and Paris, France.
MPs are allowed to accept travel sponsored by outside organizations but must declare it to the federal ethics commissioner if the value of trip exceeds $500.
Reporters caught up with Liberal MP Bob Rae after Question Period today on this subject. Rae, it should be noted, is his party's foreign affairs critic. What I found notable about this exchange is not so much the issue of MPs being unduly influenced by receiving trips but that MPs have no budget to get to those parts of the world — Rae singles out the Congo — that might need our attention and understanding the most, for the simple reason that those countries may be too poor to fly Canadian politicians over for a visit:
Bob Rae:I think the dilemma for members of Parliament — and I don't expect anybody to send us flowers — is that we have no budget for foreign travel. I'm the Foreign Affairs Critic. If I want to go to the Middle East, I have to figure out a way to finance it. And what I usually try to do is combine a trip to Israel with a trip to Egypt with a trip to Jordan and then figure out, well, how are we going to get that handled? It's very important for people to maintain an independent point of view. You've always got to realize that if somebody's sponsoring your trip they've got a point of view and you respect that. But you've got to show some independence and some sense of the complexity of things and the fact that there are a range of issues.
Reporter: But might it be seen as sort of undue influence?
Rae: No. I don't regard it as undue influence. I think that everybody has to understand that that's how MPs get around to different countries. Why do so many MPs go to Taiwan? Very simple: the Government of Taiwan encourages people to come and finances the trip. Why do so few MPs go to the Congo? Nobody's going to pay them to go to the Congo. And it really is a dilemma. It's one of the reasons why frankly, we could change the whole way we do our budgeting on foreign travel and that would solve the problem. Maybe that would be a good idea.
All right. We got rid of corporate and union donations to political parties and replaced that funding with public subsidies.
Similarly,if we think it a good thing that our MPs should get out and see the world and come back to the House of Commons wiser for that experience, then let's do what we did on political financing and remove any taint of influence and have those who employ who our MPs — that would be the long-suffering but exceedingly patient Taxpayer of Canada — pay the travel bills of MPs for business trips. (Journalists in our own organization and most other major news organization do not accept free travel, incidentally, with the PM on campaign buses or anywhere else. We pay our own way precisely so we can say to our readers that we are not beholden to anyone for the hospitality.) And, of course, the terrific byproduct of boosting travel budgets for MPs is that we could send more of them to the parts of the world too poor to pay for junkets but which might need more of our attention and understanding.
Personally, I would prefer MPs receive a higher salary, but all expense accounts and fringe benefits now paid for by the public purse be removed.
Travel expenses, office expenses, meal expenses, postage expenses, redecorating office expenses … whatever else is now paid by the taxpayer should be paid for by the MPs themselves. That would make them think twice about the advisability of an expenditure AND they would avoid having fingers pointed at them by the media and their opponents for spending too much on whatever.