On this Thanksgiving, we are grateful for Ottawa's handout!

keddy
Of course, it wasn’t money from the bank account of the federal Conservatives that MP Gerald Keddy (left) was handing over. It was money from all of us, given on behalf of the Government of Canada. Keddy got in a spot of trouble for this when he did it in 2009. Keddy has handed out dozens of such cheques, worth millions, and is on tap to do it again Tuesday as part of a cross-country blitz of cheque handouts by Conservative MPs. The party logo may no longer be there but the political point is the same: Conservatives are your pals!.

MPs will spend the next week in their ridings, doing all the good things MPs do for their constituents.

Government MPs though, get some additional work next week, handing out cheques.

Handing out cheques, of course, is one of the chief duties of government MPs — opposition MPs are never given the opportunity to hand out a government cheque — and this is done typically during weeks when MPs are away from the House of Commons on a constituency week as they are next week.

Here’s the lineup, so far, for cheque handouts on Tuesday. This is Tuesday only. It is also not an unusually busy first day of a “constituency week”. This is what government MPs do when in their ridings. Since the May 2011 election, we’ve had 5,300 cheque handouts for billions of dollars. Most happen on so-caNlled “break weeks”:

  • 1000 ET / 0900 AT | Memramcook, NB:All the polls say Conservative Robert Goguen will have a hard time winning re-election in 2015 in Moncton. To be honest, I’d say that the Conservatives will be hard pressed to come away with more than three seats in all of Atlantic Canada next fall — the three being those seats in southwestern New Brunswick held now by John Williamson and Rob Moore, one in northwest Nova Scotia held by Scott Armstrong (the one held by Peter MacKay in Central Nova is not  a lock just a “CPC favoured”) — and so I suspect there will be lots of attention paid by Conservatives to the cheque hand-out business east of Quebec as the Tories try to remind voters there that Conservatives are not ignoring their region but are, in fact, doing what the Liberals did for years – showering the region with subsidies and grants.  Atlantic Canada Conservative MPs play a prominent role in the kickoff Tuesday to Thanksgiving Week’s cheque handouts and Goguen leads the parade, handing out a subsidy to Ferme Bourgeois Farm Inc., a business in Memramcook, NB in the riding of Liberal Dominic Leblanc (who, a year out from the 2015 election, likely has little to worry about). For those who are counting — as I do in my OttawaSpends database — Goguen has handed out 64 cheques already since May 2, 2011 with a cumulative value of $31.3 million. Some of those cheques were handed out — as the one Tuesday will be — in ridings held by a New Democrat or a Liberal. But the vast bulk of Goguen’s work handing out cheques has been in his riding or other ridings held by Conservatives. He’s presented 46 cheques in ridings held by Conservatives totalling $23.2 million since the last election.
  • 1000 ET / 0900 AT | Centerville, NS:  Just across the Bay of Fundy, in the Nova Scotia riding of West Nova, Greg Kerr has a cheque from Ottawa to help with “fruit and vegetable production.” He’ll do that in the community of Centreville, which happens to be in the riding of Liberal Scott Brison. Brison seems a lock to return to the House of Commons next year. Kerr is retiring and his riding will be very much up for grabs. Of some note, the Nova Scotia Liberals pretty much swept West Nova last fall and the Liberal Premier of the province, Stephen McNeil, is a from a riding in Kerr’s district. But, like Goguen, Kerr has been busy since the 2011 election handing out Ottawa money in his riding. I count 64 cheque presentations for a total of $26.6 million, part of Kerr’s 72 cheque-handout record, all of which total $44.2 million.
  • 1000 ET | Port Rowan, ON: Public Works Minister Diane Finley is at Bird Studies Canada HQ with a cheque. As Public Works Minister and, before that, Human Resources Minister, Finley’s name is on more cheques than any other Conservative MP: 625 cheques worth $625 million. For her own riding in southwestern Ontario (a riding almost certain to remain Conservative in 2015), Finley has brought home 8 cheques worth $2.8 million.
  • 1100 ET | Burlington, ON:  Meanwhile in Ontario, a trio of Conservatives gather in Burlington, On. to hand out a cheque that Ottawa says will further business innovation. Those Conservatives and their cheque-handout rap sheet include: Gary Goodyear, the Minister of State for southern Ontario’s economic development agency (103 cheques worth a combined $2.9 billion — as a minister he gets to hand out a lot of cheques), Mike Wallace, the MP for Burlington (5 cheques worth $21.4 million since May 2011), and Terence Young, the MP for Oakville (a bit of a piker with just 7 handouts worth $4.1 million). The Liberals will certainly have Burlington and Oakville in their sights — they held both the last time they were in government — but I suspect the Conservatives are still the favourites here.
  • 1200 ET/1300 AT | Stellarton NS | Bible Hill NS | Cookville NS: Back in Atlantic Canada — a trio of Conservative MPs have separate announcements — announcements about handing out money I assume — for our “National Highway System”. Justice Minister Peter MacKay gets it started in Stellarton, NS. Stellarton is located in MacKay’s West Nova riding where MacKay has literally been money in the bank. My OttawaSpends database counts 49 cheques just for Central Nova worth a combined $56 million.  MacKay, who spent much of the time since the 2011 election as defence minister before switching to Justice, has also had his name on cheques disbersed all over the country,  handing out 185 cheques worth a combined $2 billion since the last election.  Scott Armstrong is up in Bible Hill, NS at 1415 AT with a related announcement.. That’s in his riding and Armstrong has been good for cash in NS with 44 cheques worth a combined $37.4 million.  Down on the south shore, Conservative Gerald Keddy is up at the same time as MacKay — 1300 AT — in Cookville, NS. Keddy, like every Atlantic Canada Conservative, has been a cheque-handout machine though sometimes Keddy’s enthusiasm for the grip-and-grin handout photo, like the one above, has got him in a spot of trouble. During the summer, no MP who was not a cabinet minister handed out more cheques than Keddy. There have been 67 handouts in his riding of South Shore-St. Margaret’s worth a combined $21.4 million. Add one more on Tuesday. Keddy is not running in 2015 but that part of Nova Scotia is very much in play. The NDP thought they could take it in 2011. The Liberals think it’s theirs in 2015.
  • 1200 ET / 1000 SKT | Saskatoon : Kelly Block marks the opening of an affordable housing project. Block has already handed out 18 cheques worth $44.9 million. Word is that, with new riding boundaries, the Saskatoon ridings are very much up for grabs next year and the NDP is hungrily eyeing them.
  • 1300 ET / 1400 AT | Charlottetown Charlottetown, like most of Prince Edward Island has reliably stood by the Liberals through Harper’s rule and I’d bet it continues to do so with the prospect of Justin Trudeau’s ascendancy in 2015. Sean Casey is the Liberal MP in Charlottetown and, since 2011, Tory MPs have handed out 55 cheques worth $51 million which will be spent in his riding. Why would voters switch? The money keeps pouring in from Ottawa no matter who is in charge! That said, Alice Wong, the Minister of State for Seniors, the Hong Kong-born MP from Richmond, B.C., will show up with more cash for voters in Charlottetown. This time it’s for a project that will benefit seniors. Wong, for the record, has had her name on 21 cheques worth a total of $21.6 million since May, 2011.
  • 1325 ET/1430 AT | Charlottetown :  Fisheries Minister Gail Shea — a long shot to hold her seat in western PEI in 2015 — has a cheque for the PEI Shellfish Association. Shea’s rap sheet: A whopping 217 cheques handed out since May 2011 worth a combined $118 million. Of those, 79, worth $28 million went to projects in her riding.
  • 1400 ET/1100 PT | Kelowna BC: As Minister of State for Western Economic Diversification, Michelle Rempel, like Gary Goodyear, gets to hand out a pile of cash every year. On Tuesday, it’s money for “innovative soldier survivability systems and related technologies” at the University of British Columbia Okanagan in Kelowna, B.C. Rempel ascended to her current position in the 2013 summer cabinet shuffle, a promotion which moved her to the front ranks of handing out cheques: 91 cheques in her name have been handed out totalling $218 million.
  • 1400 ET | Kirkland Lake ON Conservative Jay Apsin won by a handful of votes in 2011 over Liberal Anthony Rota. Rota is back for a re-match in 2011 and the early bet is: Toss-up. Aspin has been handing out cheques  and will do so again Tuesday with federal money for a wastewater treatment plant in Kirkland Lake. Forget that Kirkland Lake is in the riding of New Democrat Charlie Angus. Just know that it’s Aspin with with his 24th cheque handout since May 2011. His total so far? About $57 million! Take that Anthony Rota!
  • 1700 ET/1400 PT | Fort Nelson BC Bob Zimmer represents Prince George-Peace River, a region of the province that is a good bet to stay Tory in 2015. Zimmer has handed 21 cheques out worth a combined $23.8 million since 2011. On Tuesday, he has a cheque from Ottawa to improve facilities at the Northern Rockies Regional Airport.

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