Our tax dollars at work

[Locutus]

Expensive questions: It cost taxpayers $150,000 to answer a single query from a Liberal MP



It cost taxpayers an estimated $1.2-million to answer written questions from MPs – including $150,000 on a single query from a Liberal MP, new figures reveal.

The questions, 305 of them, were all tabled in the House of Commons during a three-month period this year, and they were wide-ranging.

For instance, a written question from NDP MP Peter Stoffer about IT spending at the Department of Defence, Public Security and other federal agencies cost $15,733 to answer. It cost $15,358 to study the kinds of backdrops the government used when making announcements between February 2011 and June 2012 — a question asked by Liberal MP Kevin Lamoureux, of Winnipeg North. Mr. Lamoureux tabled four questions on June 19, for a total cost of $46,228.

NDP MP Alexandrine Latendresse’s question about expenses related to engraved letterheads used by the Conservatives was answered after $21,600 of research. The Quebec-City area MP submitted three questions on May 2, racking up a $39,000 bill.


more


It cost taxpayers $150,000 to answer a single query from a Liberal MP | Canadian Politics | Canada | News | National Post

 

[JLM]

Expensive questions: It cost taxpayers $150,000 to answer a single query from a Liberal MP



It cost taxpayers an estimated $1.2-million to answer written questions from MPs – including $150,000 on a single query from a Liberal MP, new figures reveal.

The questions, 305 of them, were all tabled in the House of Commons during a three-month period this year, and they were wide-ranging.

For instance, a written question from NDP MP Peter Stoffer about IT spending at the Department of Defence, Public Security and other federal agencies cost $15,733 to answer. It cost $15,358 to study the kinds of backdrops the government used when making announcements between February 2011 and June 2012 — a question asked by Liberal MP Kevin Lamoureux, of Winnipeg North. Mr. Lamoureux tabled four questions on June 19, for a total cost of $46,228.

NDP MP Alexandrine Latendresse’s question about expenses related to engraved letterheads used by the Conservatives was answered after $21,600 of research. The Quebec-City area MP submitted three questions on May 2, racking up a $39,000 bill.


more


It cost taxpayers $150,000 to answer a single query from a Liberal MP | Canadian Politics | Canada | News | National Post

Not at all surprising when it comes to Gov't. Anything Gov't. does is costly. Back in the 1990s it cost the B.C. Gov't $35 to pay a single invoice.

 

[tay]

It will cost Canada 25 times more to close the Experimental Lakes Area research centre than it will to keep it open next year, yet the centre is closing.



Apparently the Department of Fisheries and Oceans can’t find the $2 million per year required to run the facility, though it will have to scare up the $50 million needed to remediate the lakes in the area upon the centre’s closing. It’s a bewildering decision that calls into question whether the government’s motivations are, as it claims, fiscal, or whether the Conservatives are instead trying to silence a source of inconvenient data.

Meanwhile, we needn’t wonder about the motivations behind the government’s scrapping of the National Round Table on the Environment and the Economy, a federally funded environmental watchdog created by the Mulroney government in 1988. When asked in Parliament how the government justified its decision to cut funding for the organization, Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird implied it was because the Conservatives objected to the Round Table’s repeated endorsements of a carbon tax.

In 2012, the government’s environmental policies showed a commitment to pursuing short-term economic gain, even if at a great long-term cost. We need something better than austerity at the expense of the environment and obscurantism at the expense of democracy. There’s an important debate to be had about how to negotiate between the economic potential of Canada’s natural resources and the environmental cost of exploiting them. Let’s hope the government is willing to have it in 2013.



2012: A bleak year for environmental policy - thestar.com