Angry in the Great White North

As Garth Turner continues his western Lost Tory Tour, he is preceded by a mail campaign. Garth Turner flyers are being delivered into people's homes, but not as cheap bulk mail. Instead, a team of 15 Liberal MPs are using their franking privileges to individually mail the Garth Turner flyers by individually addressed envelopes to specific households.

Garth Turner insists that sending a generic flyer in a first-class envelope using an MP's franking privileges doesn't cost the taxpayer anything:

John McCalum [sic] was one of 15 MPs from across the country who diverted local riding communications to support my tour effort. This was done so costs would be contained within existing MP budgets, with no new money spent letting people in these four provinces know of the Town Halls.

Time to put that notion to rest once and for all.

In November 2005, the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs gave this issue of franked mail and cost to the taxpayer a great deal of consideration. Here are some excerpts:

Hon. Karen Redman (Kitchener Centre, Lib.): All parties have significantly increased their output of ten percenters. They've also adopted a centralized strategy for distribution. Specifically, these seem to focus on redistribution in unheld ridings. But rather than focusing on members' own parliamentary initiatives or those of their parties, these ten percenters have been used for negative and often personal attacks. We've seen the deplorable examples of blatant abuse of the House of Commons privileges.

It's neither appropriate nor valuable, I feel, for members of Parliament to circulate material of this nature. Clearly, what we do with our party funds under the banner of partisan politics supported by those who choose to support the parties is a totally different matter. This is something to do with the use of taxpayers' dollars and our role as members of Parliament.

Something to do with taxpayers' dollars? And yet we've been told that as taxpayers we don't need to be concerned.

Redman continues:

Throughout this minority Parliament, we've seen a significant increase, as I've said, in the ten percenters in unheld ridings. Ten percenters, as everyone around this table realizes, are unlimited, and a continued increase in the distribution of ten percenters in unheld ridings will become--and I would say have become--a significant expense to the House budget.

The House budget? And yet we've been told this is being handled out of local riding budgets.

Redman contiues:

Canadians have a right to see responsible use of their taxpayer dollars. Political parties do have resources to support the communication of their political message. Partisan propaganda is not an appropriate expenditure of public funds, and its distribution reflects poorly on all of us as parliamentarians--and I believe it to be disrespectful of the institution that we serve.

What? Pay this out of the party budget?

MP Jay Hill takes up the discussion, and in particular, the question of even more expensive franked mail:

Mr. Jay Hill (Prince George—Peace River, CPC): The other issue I want to put on the table is that this whole issue of ten percenters and the abuse of it, which she wants to address with this motion, doesn't deal at all with franked mail. We know this for a fact, and I know that one of my colleagues wants to raise this issue as well.

There have been a number of occasions when Liberal government members have presumably used a database that they somehow collected, or they have simply used the Canada list of electors, to send franked mail at a horrendous cost. It costs far more than a ten percenter would cost, which would maybe be 10¢ or something, to send a piece of literature to a Canadian in a different riding. This is what she wants to prevent with this motion, yet her own colleagues have been sending out franked mail in addressed envelopes, with something similar to a ten percenter inside the envelopes, at ten times the cost.

At an earlier meeting of the same committee, In June 2005, we learn about some of the costs of ten percenters and franked mail:

Ms. Pauline Picard (Drummond, BQ): The problem with franking is that it is costly for taxpayers. If, instead of using letter mail, you opt for franked unaddressed mailings, that costs 82¢ a kilo. But when it is franked, it actually costs 50¢ [per letter]. [ed, These numbers were subsequently confired by Louis Bard, the Chief Information Officer of the House of Commons] I think we really have to look at this, because it's starting to be costly for taxpayers.

Costly for taxpayers? But we've been told this is not costly for taxpayers.

And more about the cost to taxpayers:

Mr. John Reynolds (West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, CPC): I agree, and I think we have to look at it. I also think the committee should look at whether we should continue to allow franked ten percenters to be mass-mailed out, because it's a great cost to the taxpayer. I would recommend the committee look also at some form of statement on it as to who is printing it.

[It] is expensive and the committee should look at it and make recommendations to the board. It's a tough job for the officials. But my party does not do ten percenters in envelopes with addresses; they're all done in an open distributed way.

So what is the cost difference? Again, from the specialists at the House of Commons:

Mr. Michel Roy (Executive General Manager, Printing Services, House of Commons): An average ten percenter would be around 4,000 copies. At 82¢ a kilogram, it would average around $20 to distribute those 4,000 ten percenters.

Mr. Bill Casey (Cumberland—Colchester—Musquodoboit Valley, CPC): If those same householders were sent by franked mail, in envelopes, it would be $2,000. So $20 versus $2,000, plus the cost of the envelopes. Amazing.

Wow, two orders of magnitude difference. One hundred times more expensive!

I'm not alleging that Garth Turner and his secret team of Liberal MPs broke any rules. The meetings of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs found it difficult to agree on any set of rules with regards to ten percenters and franked mail. But what is clear is that these MPs from all parties agreed that the use of these mailings constituted a major a cost for the taxpayer. They also agreed that the choice of mailing method was up to the MP, and that the choice could increase the cost to the taxpayer by one-hundred-fold.

Frankly, I was susprised by that difference in cost. I thought it was a ten-fold difference.

So Garth Turner can insist that these mailings came out of local budgets and made no difference to the taxpayer. If Garth Turner is right, then this Standing Committee has been wasting its time worrying about this. Or you can choose to believe what you've read here, and then wonder just how many envelopes were sent out stuffed with a cheap Garth Turner flyer, and just how much of public money was spent that way.

And how much less money could have been spent.

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