In a letter to Speaker Peter Milliken today, Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff called on the House of Common’s all-party Board of Internal Economy to implement sweeping reforms to curb the abuse of the MP ten-percenter privilege.
“The Harper Conservatives have deliberately abused this privilege for some time,” said Mr. Ignatieff. “But last week they went too far with their ten-percenters by falsely accusing their political opponents of anti-Semitism. This practice has to stop.”
“The Conservative Party has turned a tool for Members of Parliament to communicate with Canadians on parliamentary issues into one that focuses on increasingly outrageous partisan propaganda and negative attacks.”
In his letter, Mr. Ignatieff urged the Speaker of the House and all other parties to agree to the following steps:
1. Ten percenters should be limited to a Member’s own riding;
2. The practice of ten percenter “regroupings” must be abolished; and
3. The name of the leader of the sending member’s party must be included in any ten percenter and the leader must explicitly endorse the content of the product.
Recent reports have also shown that Conservative Members of Parliament are spending, on average, more than double the amount as other opposition MPs on these flyers. Total spending by Conservative MPs exceeded $6.3 million on printing costs alone in 2008-09.
“It is unfortunate that it had to come to this, but we must stop this toxic political abuse and return to a respectable level of political discourse in Canada,” concluded Mr. Ignatieff.
To view the letter:
http://www.liberal.ca/pdf/docs/20091121-tenpercenter-letter-eng.pdf
