2 ex-MLAs return constituency office furniture
Last Updated: Wednesday, February 24, 2010 | 9:07 PM AT
CBC News
Nova Scotia schoolchildren will soon benefit from the MLA expense scandal after the former Lunenburg West member of the legislature returned computers bought with taxpayer money.
On Wednesday, former Conservative MLA Carolyn Bolivar-Getson returned a slew of office equipment from her old constituency office, including several computers, to a Nova Scotia government warehouse in Dartmouth.
"The computers will go to the 'computers for school' program," Bruce Wood, manager of inventory control the Department of Transportation and Infrastructure, said Wednesday.
Earlier this month, Auditor General Jacques Lapointe criticized "excessive and inappropriate" spending by the 52 members of the legislature. After his report, former Conservative MLAs Bolivar-Getson and Bill Dooks promised to return items they bought for their constituency offices.
Bolivar-Getson sent back a generator, a 42-inch plasma television, three cameras, printers and computers. She even returned Christmas decorations, including a Christmas angel.
Dooks returned a shredder and portable generator last Friday.
"I would say this is on the higher side of the surplus that we normally do get," Wood told CBC News.
Most of the returned items will be distributed to other government departments. For example, one of the generators will be sent to an Emergency Health Services for use at a satellite ambulance base.
So far, Dooks and Bolivar-Getson are the only people to return items.
Under House rules in effect until recently, former MLAs were allowed to keep any office furniture they bought while serving in the legislature.
Share Tools
Latest Nova Scotia News Headlines
- More safety investigators urged after electrocution
- The head of the Nova Scotia Federation of Labour is renewing his call for specially trained safety investigators and prosecutors to deal with workplace safety after a 39-year-old worker was electrocuted on the job. more »
- Friends fundraising for boy with rare brain cancer
- Family and friends of a 20-month-old toddler from Eastern Passage are appealing for help to send the boy to Texas to treat a rare form of brain cancer. more »
- Children's mouths allegedly taped shut at N.S. school
- An assistant instructor at a school in Bedford, N.S., is under investigation by police after allegedly taping shut the mouths of several students. more »
- Judge scolds 'flabby, sad generation' for skipping jury duty
- The chief justice of the Nova Scotia Supreme Court is demanding to know why 95 people, or 40 per cent of prospective jurors, were not in court Tuesday for the start of a five-day trial. more »
Must Watch
Top News Headlines
- Video forensics: How easy would it be to fake a Rob Ford video?
- Two media outlets reported last week that they had seen a cellphone video of Mayor Rob Ford allegedly smoking crack, a claim that has gone global. If a video does surface, how easy would it be to determine its authenticity? CBC News asked video forensic analyst David McKay.
more »
- Tim Bosma memorial today in hall that hosted his wedding reception
- The widow of Tim Bosma, the Hamilton man killed after taking two strangers on a test drive in a truck he had listed for sale online, will say goodbye to her husband at a public memorial today in the same hall where they celebrated their marriage just three years ago. CBCNews.ca will livestream the event starting at 11 a.m. ET. more »
- Oklahoma residents begin to return home after deadly tornado
- Rescue workers raced to complete the search for survivors and the dead in the Oklahoma City suburb where a mammoth tornado destroyed countless homes, cleared lots down to bare red earth and claimed 24 lives, including those of nine children. more »
- Jimmy Kimmel, Jon Stewart crack jokes about Rob Ford
- Toronto Mayor Rob Ford's woes over crack cocaine allegations are providing plenty of late-night TV fodder for Jimmy Kimmel, Jon Stewart and other comedians south of the border. more »
- How the weather info that storm chasers use can keep you safe
- Radar imagery and a stream of weather information are readily available to the public when severe weather bears down. more »
- Children's mouths allegedly taped shut at N.S. school
- Judge scolds 'flabby, sad generation' for skipping jury duty
- Friends fundraising for boy with rare brain cancer
- Dartmouth man reports roofers not wearing safety gear
- Man electrocuted in Halifax industrial accident
- More safety investigators urged after electrocution
- Annapolis Valley apple orchard quarantined
- Sudden death of Digby man investigated
- Pink Shirt Day co-founder seeks Tory nomination

