MPs Expenses: Constituency Travel – From Lemay to Proulx

MPs report the summary totals of their expenses once a year. You can review the data yourself [PDF] for the most recent year for which information is available – fiscal 2009, also known as the 12-month period ending on March 31, 2009. This is the only document provided by the Board of Internal Economy, the nine-MP committee that meets in secret to supervise the expenditure of more than $500 million a year associated with the operations of the House of Commons and the Library of Parliament.

What I've done is take the Member's Expenditure's Report and dumped the data in that PDF into a spreadsheet so that I can present some comparisons and analysis. This is one of several posts with some of those summaries and analyses.

Member's Office Budget: Travel

“Travel” shows up in two different summaries MPs declare. There is travel provided by the House of Commons that mostly includes the cost of getting an MP back and forth to Ottawa from their riding. And there is this travel category, money coming out of the “Member's Office Budget” that is to be used mostly for the costs of getting around one's constituency but it can also be used by MPs who want to travel throughout the province their riding is in. Member's Office Budgets, by the way, are capped at about $280,000. Members with big ridings or with densely populated ridings get a little extra. Here's what the annual expenditure report says about what's included in this category: “includes travel, accommodation, meal and incidental expenses incurred by the Member and the Member’s employees, designated traveller and/or dependant(s) within the constituency or the province or territory in which the constituency is located. It also includes certain transportation expenses incurred by the Member within the National Capital Region, as well as accommodation, meal and incidental expenses incurred by employees on parliamentary business trips within Canada specifically authorized by the Board of Internal Economy.”

So with that preamble, here's the top 20 biggest-spending MPs in this category:

1. Marc Lemay (BQ) – Abitibi-Témiscamingue $60,483 (right)
2. Raynald Blais (BQ) – Gaspésie-Îles-de-la-Madeleine $50,026
3. Merv Tweed (CPC) – Brandon-Souris $41,762
4. Mario Laframboise (BQ) – Argenteuil-Papineau-Mirabel $40,996
5. Richard Harris (CPC) – Cariboo-Prince George $40,425
6. Michel Guimond (BQ) – Montmorency-Charlevoix-Haute-Côte-Nord $37,714
7. Jacques Gourde (CPC) – Lotbinière-Chutes-de-la-Chaudière $37,211
8. Nathan Cullen (NDP) – Skeena-Bulkley Valley $34,269
9. Mike Allen (CPC) – Tobique-Mactaquac $32,030
10. Roger Gaudet (BQ) – Montcalm $29,927
11. Yvon Lévesque (BQ) – Abitibi-Baie-James-Nunavik-Eeyou $29,569
12. Kevin Sorenson (CPC) – Crowfoot $28,977
13. Jay Hill (CPC) – Prince George-Peace River $28,422
14. Scott Simms (LPC) – Bonavista-Gander-Grand Falls •Windsor $27,410
15. Jean-Claude D'Amours (LPC) – Madawaska-Restigouche $27,373
16. Daryl Kramp (CPC) – Prince Edward-Hastings $27,076
17. Anthony Rota (LPC) – Nipissing-Timiskaming $26,523
18. Denis Lebel (CPC) – Roberval-Lac-Saint-Jean $26,456
19. Guy Lauzon (CPC) – Stormont-Dundas-South Glengarry $25,450
20. Louis Plamondon (BQ) – Bas-Richelieu-Nicolet-Bécancour $25,425

And here's the bottom 20, starting with the MP who spent the least amount in this category:

1. Marcel Proulx (LPC) – Hull-Aylmer $0 (right)
2. Gilles Duceppe (BQ) $21
3. Gordon O'Connor (CPC) $97
4. Pablo Rodriguez (LPC) $142
5. Maria Mourani (CPC) $160
6. Réal Ménard (BQ) $255
7. Paul Dewar (NDP) $443
8. Mike Wallace (CPC) $739
9. Joy Smith (CPC) $816
10. Sukh Dhaliwal (LPC) $884
11. Diane Bourgeois (BQ) $1,074
12. John Baird (CPC) $1,175
13. David McGuinty (LPC) $1,244
14. Richard Nadeau (BQ) $1,269
15. Mauril Bélanger (LPC) $1,335
16. Rick Dykstra (CPC) $1,375
17. Pierre Poilievre (CPC) $1,431
18. Thierry St-Cyr (BQ) $1,455
19. Jim Karygiannis (LPC) $1,540
20. Albina Guarnieri (LPC) $1,643

Because there was a general election in the middle of this fiscal year, not every MP served for the full fiscal year. Among those that did serve the entire 12 months, the average expenditure on MOB-Travel was: $18,504