Contract out senators' travel expenses (March 6)

Being a senator – bah! Get me a lottery win

 

                                                    by Robert LaFrance

 

            For years I have been nagging the prime minister for a Senate post, but now I’m not so sure I still want it.

            Mike Duffy and several other senators have been ‘under the gun’ for weeks about their official provinces of residence. A show of hands: how many people think this publicity will result in any changes to the way that august body (the Senate) does its business? Will Goldilocks get devoured by the three bears, or will they give her a conditional sentence called life? Will Dr. Wilson and Nurse Tracy finally declare their love and…

            Sorry, I was drifting into the realm of soap opera there.

            Someone said that the Senate of Canada can be compared to bear droppings in the woods of Quebec. Although that province has no use for that fecal material, they would fight to keep it. Same with ‘reform’ of the Senate. Quebec will block every attempt to change it.

            Is there a snowball’s chance that the Senate will ever be reformed in any way? Let me put it this way: any reform would have to be voted on by the Senate. Will we ever learn the details of senators’ expense accounts? Not on your life.

            Wouldn’t it be interesting if some straightforward gentleman (like a biker gang leader) were to be given a ‘mandate’ as they say in government (it means permission) to examine senators’ expense accounts in detail? I can picture the scene: A BIG news conference in The Red Chamber foyer where at the front of the room Hiram (not his real name) would talk to reporters and other Canadians: "When one senator, who lives in Ottawa, puts in travel claims totalling $157,000 for one year, something is wrong.

            “I can see Senator Whoosis’s house from here,” Hiram would say as he looked out the window. “He/she came to nineteen sessions of the Senate last year. That would average out to about – let me see – eight thousand two hundred and sixty-two dollars and sixteen cents, (rounded off) dollars in travel expenses per session. My wine bill didn’t amount to that since 1999. I would be glad to pick him/her up in a rickshaw for half that."

            Hiram would have gone on to mention that retired Saskatchewan Senator Gerry St. Germain claimed $378,292 in expenses in 2012. This is addition to his salary of – what? - $140,000 or so and all the subsidies that the 104 senators receive, like gourmet meals in the Parliamentary restaurant for nine dollars each. It may cost like McDonalds, but the grub is like that of the Dorchester Hotel in London.

            Unwittingly, Hiram, had he really been there, would have come up with the perfect solution. Here it is: We contract out the travel of senators and, instead of paying them a salary, we pay them for the sessions they do attend. Let’s be generous; any senator who attends 90% of the sessions gets his/her full salary.

            As to those pesky travel expenses, let us ‘ordinary’ people bid on getting the senators to and from Ottawa. For example, if Senator Sam Marchand of Trois Rivieres now puts down $1400 for a trip to and from his home, let’s put it up for bids. Maybe there’s a guy or gal in Trois Rivieres who has a 15-passenger van. He could pick up Sam in Trois Rivieres, then a couple more senators in the Montreal area, then off to Ottawa. Total cost: $276 in gas each way and $199 for meals at truck stops.

            I would bid on the job of travelling the senator who really lives in Ottawa, but charges us $157,000 a year in travel expenses. Dust off my 1961 Falcon, Nellie, the one I used to call Hitler.

            The Senate of Canada is known by many names, including The Upper House, The Red Chamber, and The House of Sober Second Thought. The first two nicknames are quite understandable, but as to the third, has anyone perused the bar bills of Senators Cleroux and Senator Murphy? I could buy a new Cessna every year.

            In conclusion, (as politicians are fond of saying about an hour before they finish their speeches) I will inform you and the world that I am sick and tired of seeing young people weighed down by student loans and the lack of jobs while these parasites – and we must remember that many senators work hard – are sucking in half a million dollars each, every year, for performing a very dubious task.

 

           When they’re there.

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