When Defence Becomes Offence

"There is no legal basis for this decision in Canadian law or in parliamentary rules."
"The decision is illegal since members of Parliament are entitled, by law, to exercise their parliamentary functions 'wherever' and in so doing, are entitled to make use of parliamentary resources to accomplish parliamentary functions."
Federal Court application by NDP MPs

NDP Leader Tom Mulcair: Party is fighting the bill for its Quebec 'satellite' offices.
THE CANADIAN PRESS

The New Democratic Party is fond of interpreting the law as it applies to the House of Commons as they see fit. They are enraged that the House of Commons committee monitoring the spending of Members of Parliament, the Board of Internal Economy whose members are comprised of Conservative, NDP and Liberal MPs reached a common conclusion that the NDP has engaged in illegal spending.

And so, in their wisdom, 65 NDP Members of Parliament have lent themselves to a legal action against the Board of Internal Economy asking the Federal Court to set aside the decision reached by the all-party board to demand a $2.7-million repayment of staff costs from offices that the NDP set up in Quebec. Their concern is that the House of Commons be withheld from collecting on the debt by garnisheeing salaries of the MPs involved until the outstanding amounts have been collected.

The issue arose out of NDP MPs breaching Parliamentary bylaws to use their office budgets in the House of Commons to pay for staff working in the off-site offices set up in Montreal and Quebec City for which each of the MPs contributed to a pooled fund. In amounts ranging from $1,288 to over $100,000 from each Member of Parliament. Tom Mulcair, leader of the NDP, sees his office alone owing $408,000 in payback to the House of Commons.

The NDP MPs argue in their application to the court that the board's decision was "unreasonable, arbitrary and incorrect", as they see it. Their claims are that the issue reflects political bias, and the decision to dun the MPs made in bad faith; this, of an all-party board decision. MPs are able to use taxpayer funding to pay staff in their parliamentary offices only, or in constituency riding offices.

The NDP MPs felt entitled to place House of Commons-paid staff in rented space in downtown Montreal and Quebec City, maintaining that staff worked for the Quebec MPs only, not being involved in political operations like election organizing or fundraising. An additional $2.3-million invoice representing the costs of mailouts to constituents the board determined to be partisan in nature and a violation of the rules is also expected.

The NDP's brave new initiative -- setting their own very specific rules on the dispersal of taxpayer funded perquisites.