Politicians: To be chauffeured or not to be chauffeured

(CBC Television)

In all the chatter about spending binges on summit security and the need for audits of that and MPs expenses, I ask you to turn your attention to Britain, where the new government of the day is taking a different tack in its approach to austerity.

Prime Minister David Cameron, through the chief secretary of the treasury, is banning the use of chauffeured-driven cars for his ministers, except for a few, including the defence secretary, the home secretary and the foreign secretary...and Cameron himself.

As seen in this article, the move will apparently save millions of pounds each year.

Not surprisingly, the idea popped up on this side of the pond Thursday night on CBC's Power and Politics when CBC commentator and the prime minister's former communications director, Kory Teneycke, tossed out a comment about Ottawa's "addiction to chauffeured driven cars." And that there are more than "200 chauffeurs on the federal government tab."

Teneycke asks whether it is legitimate that deputy ministers and associate deputy ministers have them, among others, such as some of the heads of crown corporations.

This is not a new bugaboo. In 1993, then Reform Party Leader Preston Manning publicly "turned in" the keys to his chauffeur-driven car, arguing it was an unnecessary.

So we thought, all these years later, as Canada faces a large deficit, how much does this service cost and who uses the perk?

"It's very difficult to actually even get to what the number is, this is a secret protected by the public service every bit as vigorously as the MPs were protecting their own expenses," Teneycke argues.

He has a point there.

Getting the most basic information on this topic (or many topics, I might add) from the government proves time consuming and often somewhat fruitless. It's not that the information isn't there, it's the layers of approval that have to be given before that information makes it way to little ol' me.

So I can't tell you how many government ministers and other senior officials use a chauffeured-driven car, or how much it costs in total. Those questions remained unanswered at press time. I tried finding the cost in the Main Estimates from Treasury Board and all I could find was a car allowance for ministers at $79,000. Is that for the car and driver? Does that include overtime, fuel and maintenance? Depreciation of the vehicle? No idea. And that doesn't include all those below the ministerial level who enjoy the service.

But according to Treasury Board guidelines this is who is eligible: cabinet ministers, ministers of state, secretaries of state, deputy ministers and certain eligible senior officials. That means for a department like Foreign Affairs and International Trade, five people have access to such a service.

The Canadian Taxpayers Federation, not surprisingly, is not impressed. President Kevin Gaudet says, "This would be a good place for governments to start looking to reduce their budgets by taking away the keys to the cars."

But former Liberal cabinet minister (take your pick: industry, finance, deputy prime minister...) John Manley sees it differently. Manley now heads up the Canadian Council of Chief Executives.

"I think we actually ask ministers to live according to a super human schedule, and I think very few chief executives of large corporations in Canada live the kind of life that ministers do, or have to deal with the degree of sensitivity of documents, of conversations that ministers do. I think the public is well deserved by ministers having access to a car and driver."

In an interview with the CBC, Manley says that he used to run or skate to work, but that isn't a practical solution for getting between meetings or working all hours of the day and night. Especially in a city like Ottawa where, unlike London, there is no subway and waits for taxis can be long.

Here's what some other former and current cabinet ministers, as well as opposition MPs had to say on the matter after question period on Friday:

Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon:

"When I used to be in Quebec, they had a chauffeur-driven car and they were with you 24-7.  Here it's not as stringent, you can walk around and indeed when I go in my riding on political stuff, I take my own car."

And when asked if  it makes sense for him to giveup the car altogether:
"It all depends on the work day and where you have to be."

Defence Minister Peter MacKay:
"It gets me here on time."

Wayne Easter (former Liberal cabinet minister):
"I guess it comes down to this, you want ministers to do their job, do it well and be effective in doing it, then you have to have the resources to be able to do it and one of those resources is getting from point A to point C, to point C without a whole lot of complications. I say that in all seriousness."

Although Easter doesn't think the resource need be extended to secretaries of state and junior ministers etc. He says he thinks "this government has too many (cars)"

NDP MP Pat Martin:

"I think they should take a lead from Jack Layton. He was offered a car. He said no thanks and we hired an extra researcher in our office with the money."

Minister of Fisheries and Oceans Gail Shea:
"I think it's very important because their time is very precious. Most of the time running between meetings so, you know, it's important to have somebody there waiting. You don't have to park the car. It makes it very convenient."

Liberal MP Mark Holland says it's hard for him to criticize, never having been a cabinet minister, but that perhaps it's time to review the practice from a "business case" perspective.

"I think there are some cabinet ministers, for example, the minister of finance or other ministers who have a lot of demands and probably do need a car as they're driving between locations to look at documents, make phone calls and have all of their attention on their work. But there may very well be other ministers who are less busy, less pressed for time and can do without it," says Holland.

So it would seem Canada is not on any rapid path to following Britain. But then, the Brits might want to think twice about the new policy. It turns out, according to this article, that the cars will still be used for minister's "red boxes" (they hold minister's official documents), but that the ministers cannot accompany said boxes. I don't think I need to point out the absurdity in that.

And if chauffered-driven cars are actually good value for money, perhaps it's just the perceived difference between "them" and "us" that rubs "us" the wrong way. Even the Canadian Taxpayers Federation's Kevin Gaudet concedes as much:

"I think the reason that taxpayers get frustrated by these types of stories is they are so many examples of how politicians and bureaucrats enjoy luxuries that we don't as taxpayers, and that's why this type of story touches a nerve."