MPs Expenses: Office leasing costs – From Rodriguez to Benoit

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: Office Lease

This is a simple category: MPs declare how much they paid to lease space back in their constituency for an office. Some MPs who live in ridings that are 500 square kilometres or bigger in size are allotted extra funds presumably so they can operate secondary or satellite constituency offices. 'Course, MPs do not report how many offices they rented or how many square feet they signed for so all we have is this summary information:

Here's the top 20 biggest-spending MPs in this category:

  1. Pablo Rodriguez (LPC) – Honoré-Mercier $55,786
  2. Jean-Pierre Blackburn (CPC) – Jonquière-Alma $54,836
  3. Gilles Duceppe (BQ) – Laurier-Sainte-Marie $50,567
  4. James Lunney (CPC) – Nanaimo-Alberni $46,681
  5. Albina Guarnieri (LPC) – Mississauga East-Cooksville $45,266
  6. Jim Prentice (CPC) – Calgary Centre-North $44,077
  7. Joy Smith (CPC) – Kildonan-St. Paul $42,737
  8. Bradley Trost (CPC) – Saskatoon-Humboldt $41,979
  9. Borys Wrzesnewskyj (LPC) – Etobicoke Centre $41,869
  10. Stéphane Dion (LPC) – Saint-Laurent-Cartierville $41,283
  11. Stephen Harper (CPC) – Calgary Southwest $41,132
  12. Chris Warkentin (CPC) – Peace River $39,702
  13. Dennis Bevington (NDP) – Western Arctic $39,396
  14. Denis Coderre (LPC) – Bourassa $38,936
  15. Diane Ablonczy (CPC) – Calgary-Nose Hill $38,057
  16. Rona Ambrose (CPC) – Edmonton-Spruce Grove $37,773
  17. Brian Storseth (CPC) – Westlock-St. Paul $37,631
  18. Lee Richardson (CPC) – Calgary Centre $36,818
  19. David Tilson (CPC) – Dufferin-Caledon $36,806
  20. Francis Scarpaleggia (LPC) – Lac-Saint-Louis $36,569

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

  1. Leon Benoit (CPC) – Vegreville-Wainwright $6,900
  2. Rob Clarke (CPC) – Desnethé-Missinippi-Churchill River $7,399
  3. Guy André (BQ) – Berthier-Maskinongé $8,183
  4. Garry Breitkreuz (CPC) – Yorkton-Melville $8,550
  5. Pat Martin (NDP) – Winnipeg Centre $8,662
  6. Stockwell Day (CPC) – Okanagan-Coquihalla $9,400
  7. Diane Finley (CPC) – Haldimand-Norfolk $9,600
  8. Jeff Watson (CPC) – Essex $9,600
  9. Brian Murphy (LPC) – Moncton-Riverview-Dieppe $10,575
  10. Paul Dewar (NDP) – Ottawa Centre $10,729
  11. Yvon Godin (NDP) – Acadie-Bathurst $11,100
  12. Wayne Easter (LPC) – Malpeque $11,100
  13. John Cummins (CPC) – Delta-Richmond East $11,149
  14. Kevin Sorenson (CPC) – Crowfoot $11,160
  15. Louis Plamondon (BQ) – Bas-Richelieu-Nicolet-Bécancour $11,520
  16. Chris Charlton (NP) – Hamilton Mountain $11,631
  17. David Sweet (CPC) – Ancaster-Dundas-Flamborough-Westdale $12,067
  18. Mauril Bélanger (LPC) – Ottawa-Vanier $12,312
  19. Rodger Cuzner (LPC) – Cape Breton-Canso $12,495
  20. Vic Toews (CPC) – Provencher $12,756

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 Office Leases was: $24,610

One thought on “MPs Expenses: Office leasing costs – From Rodriguez to Benoit”

  1. OK, I think I see what happened now.
    The Office leasing costs were mistakenly listed under Constituency Travel as well?
    1. Pablo Rodriguez (LPC) – Honoré-Mercier $55,786
    2. Jean-Pierre Blackburn (CPC) – Jonquière-Alma $54,836
    3. Gilles Duceppe (BQ) – Laurier-Sainte-Marie $50,567

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