The federal long-gun registry has finally begun to stare death in the face as it emerges from the Public Safety Committee. As every opposition member on the committee is staunchly supportive of the program, it is no surprise that it voted to recommend that the House not pass Candice Hoeppner’s Bill C-391. 

The House of Commons is a bigger fish bowl however, and swimming in it are 21 opposition members who voted for the Bill at Second Reading. Of these were 12 New Democrats, 8 Liberals and 1 independent. All Bloquists voted “nay”. Opposition Leader Michael Ignatieff has now promised to whip his rebel MPs into shape despite the convention that all private members bills be free-votes and Bloc is expected to vote as it did before. This leaves NDP leader Jack Layton unwillingly holding the proverbial bullets to shoot down the long-gun registry.

Will Jack Layton whip his caucus as well? Can he succeed? Will any whipped Liberals or (potentially whipped) New Democrats simply abstain or catch the “Ottawa flu’?  Regardless of what happens, here is how the vote might go down:

According to these figures, the Bill has a living chance of passing in most scenarios with the obvious exception of all opposition parties voting together. Even if both the NDP and Liberals where whipped, some of their dissenting members would feel tremendous pressure from constituents to break party lines and vote for the Bill regardless, or at the very least not vote in opposition.

In the last noted scenario  – that of all dissenting Liberals falling in line with their leader’s whip and all dissenting New Democrats sitting on their hands – the bill would be defeated by a single vote. Since Second Reading however, pro-registry New Democrat Judy Wasylycia-Leis has resigned to run for the mayor’s chair in Winnipeg, bringing the vote to an exact tie.

Much drama awaits the fish bowl of Ottawa!

“I told you so” would be the likely response from a child towards what appears to be a 180-degree flip-flop on allowing the auditor-general (AG) to examine MP’s expenses. ‘Kicking and screaming’ would also be an apt description of how MPs were brought to their expected – but still pending – decision.

The Canadian Taxpayers Federation has campaigned hard to have these expenses opened up to the AG and is recognized as a leader in this fight. This has been done through tireless advocacy in the media, an online petition with nearly 10-thousand signatures with a supplementary Facebook group and by alerting the CTF’s 74,000 supporters to contact their MP directly.

Ottawa’s “bipartisan” (or “multi-partisan” to be technical)  consensus about keeping the AG out of their business was only politically convenient so long as all parties stood in union-like solidarity, refusing to cross the picket-line and abandon their comrades to ever-thinner numbers. Ottawa-washed MPs saw calls for openness by the AG, CTF and several media outlets as having no traction, that their constituents were “not interested.”

The thousands of angry callers to talk-radio stations and MP’s office, emails to Parliament Hill and letters to the editor have pushed a few rouge MPs to realize that their political skins are best served by transparency, and not in solidarity with secrecy.

As the trickle of these independent-minded MPs became a small stream and with the Bloc having already tossed its hat into the good-guys corner (who’d of seen that coming?) the federalist parties have now been forced to “reconsider” their decision. It is the height of political theatre that Opposition Leader Michael Ignatieff is now inviting the AG to “meet with the Board of Internal Economy,” after she already did so and was soundly rejected by all three federalist parties just weeks ago. Mr. Layton has made similar statements about speaking with the AG again after his party  publicly slammed the door shut on Ms. Fraser’s investigation. Now the Tories have a “secret plan” to provide greater transparency in MP expenses. Read that last line back to yourself again. No. Your not crazy.

It is too soon to jump to conclusions as to if the proposals now being discussed behind closed doors are sufficient enough to hold MPs accountable for past spending, or if appropriate measures will be put in place to ensure that future spending is transparent and open (as in posted in detail, online), but it’s not too soon to speculate as to what the political ramifications are and/or will be:

1. A squandered political opportunity: Like previous audits in the UK, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, it is possible that there will be inappropriate expenses found from members in all parties. Because only the Bloc Quebecois can claim with a straight face to have supported an audit from an early stage, no other party will be able to wash itself from whatever might spray its way. Had for instance the NDP sided in favor of an audit when it had a chance to just the other week, it would rightfully be able to claim that despite any muck found, it was a willing partner in the push for openness. Because all federalist parties are only now (and still highly tentatively) coming around in favor of an audit, voters will see their revisited decision as being done so while kicking and screaming.
2. Open space for parties currently without seats: Any party not weighed down by refusing to allow an audit has the potential to tap into a deep vein of discontent, regardless of its ideological bend. Cue the Green Party. Whatever its far-out (or is that groovy?) policy suggestions, it – like the Bloc – can claim to be fresh and untouched. Western MPs should be particularly sensitive to perceptions of MPs representing Ottawa to the people, as opposed to MPs representing the people to Ottawa. Reference the UK Independence Party in 2009’s EU “parliamentary” elections.
3. Lower voter turnout: Yes, I’ll play that card as well. Everybody with a bone to pick with public policy makes the claim that [INSERT GRIEVANCE HERE] will further reduce turnout on e-day, but widespread perception (or reality) that there exists little or no difference between parties will do just that. Reference Ontario conservative voters in the 2003 and 2007 provincial elections.

Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. The details of the “secret plan” to make MP expenses more transparent are not yet known and so we should not be too eager to declare victory, but we can take three lessons from the whole ordeal:

1. With only the rarest of exceptions, any politician or party will become disconnected from the people that they represent when they are in Ottawa for too long;
2. When all or most parties agree on something, be very suspicious; and that
3. Organized citizens can make a difference and wake politicians from their stupor if they rise up loudly and smartly enough. And yes, that was a shameless sales pitch for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.

In the end, it is inevitable that MPs expenses be made public. The only question is how much fight it would take to make them so. Despite the adolescence of it, taxpayers are justified in saying, “I told you so.”

In that spirit of sharing the wealth, Ms. Wasylycia-Leis will now have to forgo her $163,306/year salary in favor of the more modest $67,012 in annual pension payouts, according to estimates by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF). As she is of eligible age to collect immediately, she will be able to use this income to supplement her potential new salary that comes with the major’s gig in Winnipeg.

“When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor taxpayers have no food, they call me a fiscal conservative”.

While Nova Scotia’s government may not be prudent in how it spends the taxes it levies, it is markedly more transparent than Ottawa in how it is spent, going so far as to publish the pension eligibility of each MLA.

In New Brunswick, Shawn Graham’s Liberal government – for all its recent fumblings of late and a pesky deficit – is leading the way in fiscal reform by both lowering and flattening personal income taxes. While still not yet competitive with Alberta, BC and Saskatchewan, it is quickly gaining momentum and may yet overtake lardy-Ontario.

The east-coast may still be an economic  basket case, but these two provinces have shown limited leadership on these respective fronts. Time will tell if Ottawa drops its colonial attitude towards both taxpayers and what it considers to be the hinterlands.

A Liberal motion to end the practice of taxpayer-funded MP junk-mail – oft known as 10%ers – passed with the support of the Bloc Québécois and NDP, with every single Conservative in the House voting against it.  This no-brainer move to end a wasteful entitlement for MPs was supported by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) and anyone who not only hates getting junk-mail, but having to pay for it with their own taxes to boot.  MP junk-mail even won the CTF’s federal Teddy Waste Award this year.

Some Conservatives have excused themselves from this predicament, pointing to the opposition parties’ motives. Find me a party without one. Ending MP junk-mail is good policy – regardless of partisan motives – as was the doomed Conservative attempt to end the per-vote subsidy, regardless of what partisan motives they had at the time.

The Conservatives passed up an excellent opportunity to slice a stip of bacon off the taxpayer slaughterhouse better known as Parliament.

You can find out how your MP voted HERE.

Now where have I heard that before?  Try flipping to page 13 and 14 of The Taxpayer, the flagship publication of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF). In the article on those pages, I researched and wrote about “Cash-For-Life” pensions that Senators receive for their democratic service to Canada, which at times can total more than $200,000 annually. In the very first sentence, a real “Cash-For-Life” example of the lottery is used for an unnamed man near Windsor.

I for one am pleased that an NDP MP from the Windsor-London-Hamilton corridor would be using what the CTF has to say in his talking-points as they regard the Senate.  One can only hope that the NDP will also start reading what t CTF has to say about taxation and spending.