Canadian politicians and entourages quietly submit hundreds of thousands in world travel expenses

There are two traditions in the House of Commons as it winds down for the three-month summer recess, neither of which should be particularly comforting for citizens and taxpayers.

One is a last-minute rush of bills through their final stages, often in a flurry of unanimous motions that can result years later in the belated realization the law is flawed, or overlooks something the MPs missed in their haste to get out or, as happened once with a child pornography bill, is unconstitutional.

The legislative deluge didn't occur this year because of the recent election and the brief time between that and the recess.

But the other routine business in late June, certain as night follows day, is the quiet tabling of a raft of reports, not all once, that detail thousands and thousands and thousands of dollars that MPs spend, on behalf of taxpayers as they jet around the world in exchange associations involving pretty well any country you can name.

This June, the reports that first trickled onto the Commons clerk's table after Parliament resumed on June 3, then arrived in a landslide this week, covered 15 junkets whose costs, including airfare, hotels, meals, official gifts and the ever-present "miscellaneous," totalled $571,718.

At the top of the list this season was the Canada-China Legislative Association, only created a few years ago to bring the number of associations up to an even 12, whose members for reasons not disclosed in their reports decided they would make a total of three visits to China and its provinces between April 2010 and last March. Since China is very far away, the trips were more costly than normal and the bills came to a total of $152,108.

The two co-chairs of the association, Conservative MP Daryl Kramp from Belleville, Ont., and Liberal Senator Joseph Day from New Brunswick, went along on all three excursions. In fact, they were the only two on the first tour, in April, 2010, along with the association's secretary, and that trip alone cost $30,182.

The next trip to China last September consisted of the two co-chairs, one other senator and five other MPs — two Liberals, two Conservatives and one Bloc Quebecois, once again with the association's secretary in tow.

That trip was the most expensive in this round at a total cost of $86,902. It included $2,145 in miscellaneous expenses, which seems to be a lot for sundries.

The entourage visited the cities of Beijing, Tianjinm, Nanjing, Changshu and Shanghai and Lhasa, capital of the autonomous region of Tibet, even though the association report described the reason for the trip as the association's 13th bilateral meeting, which was held in Beijing.

On their April trip last year, co-chairs Day and Kramp visited Beijing, Xining, Lhasa and Chengdu. The reason for that trip was a planning session for the 13th bilateral meeting last September and another bilateral meeting in Canada held last October. Day and Kramp also made the costly voyage to "continue the renewal and reinvigoration of the CCLA relationship following the 12th bilateral meeting held in June 2009."

Their report said the objectives of the visit were to "apprise the Chinese of the political situation in Canada," learn more about Chinese-Canadians business, cultural and political links and to "promote enhanced cooperation at all these levels."

As well, the two Canadian parliamentarians planned to "promote friendship and the normalization of regular opportunities for dialogue with Chinese counterparts." I.E. more trips in the future.

In February, 2010, according to another report, Conservative MP Randy Hoback, from Prince Albert, Sask., and Liberal Senator Celine Hervieux Payette from Montreal, spent $19,154 on a six-day trip to Curitiba, Brazil, a tropical alternative to Ottawa in the winter, where they met a variety of Caribbean and South American members of the Inter-Parliamentary Forum of the Americas.

Among other things, the participants were briefed on the status of a ParlAmericas newsletter, and the fact the next edition would contain a contribution from Hoback on hemispheric security and transnational crime, and were also briefed on a new website for the association as well as ongoing attempts to create a new logo. The group established a "logo-decision committee," including Hervieux-Payette, to select the final design.

Similar weighty decisions were made in Tromso, Norway, last February at a meeting of the Standing Committee of Parliamentarians of the Arctic Region, a committee of the Canada-Europe Parliamentary Association. Conservative MP James Lunney, from Nanaimo, B.C., and Liberal MP Larry Bagnell, from Whitehorse, had general discussions with the other delegates about governance in the Arctic region, before they addressed Iceland's proposal to rotate the committee's chairmanship.

"The idea was that other bodies such as the Nordic Council follow this model and that there was a need to share the burden and luxury of being chair," the report says.

"It was agreed to discuss this further at the next meeting with a view to coming to a final decision," it concludes.

That trip cost $21,397. But Norway, again, is difficult to get to from Ottawa, and the airfare alone was $17,010.

MPs and senators on several other associations also visited, Brussels, Belgium and Paris, on one trip alone by members of the NATO Parliamentary Association, New York, London, Warsaw, Strasbourg, Vienna, Azerbaijan, Washington, San Diego, Mexico City and Laos and Thailand.

One of the reports included an explanation that a Conservative MP felt required to correct a chair's introductory speech, by noting the Harper government was first elected in 2006, not 2007.

There's no life like it.

(Reuters Photo)