OTTAWA - One Conservative budget vote has cost Canadian taxpayers $63,500, the opposition charged Friday. Former Conservative Party candidate Salma Ataullahjan was appointed to the red chamber by Prime Minister Stephen Harper 
Friday, just in time for her to vote in favour of the Tories’ controversial budget next week. Conservatives now have 52 senators, Liberals have 49 and there are 4 independents, although at least three senators are on sick leave. Ataullahjan’s $132,300 yearly salary kicked in the moment she was appointed, as did her office budget, which is worth $173,100. If Harper had waited to appoint her until the Senate is scheduled to resume fall sittings on September 20, the public purse would have saved $63,518.09, the NDP told QMI Agency. New Democrats calculate Ataullahjan will receive $25,372.60 in salary and will likely spend $38,145.49 in office and travel expenses during the next 73 days - two of which will be working days. “It’s too bad we couldn’t put her on the payroll for one day and lay her off for the summer, like they do in a temporary help agency,” NDP MP Pat Martin said.
Martin said the Liberals were unlikely to show up in enough numbers to defeat the budget anyway. “They would have made sure half of their senators are off gallivanting around the globe or had a case of the parliamentary flu,” Martin said. “Harper’s abundance of caution is costing us a fortune, and giving this failed Conservative candidate a golden handshake and a summer around the pool while she’s pulling down a handsome salary for doing nothing.” Liberal MP Navdeep Bains said Ataullahjan will have tough job ahead plowing through the 880-page budget in time for next week’s vote. “I think regardless of what she reads, at the end of the day she’ll take orders from the Prime Minister’s Office,” he said.
No comments:
Post a Comment