It was another banner year for Babel’s MP Patrick Brown. In the federal government’s 2010-2011 fiscal year, he was once again, among the top ten spenders in Canada’s Parliament. On top of a salary of over $150,000 a year, Brown managed to spend $551,426.82 in expenses. That amount obviously made voters notice him and return him for another four years of doing nothing but promoting himself.
There should be a prize in each of those years for the person in Babelwho can name three accomplishments by Mr. Brown in Ottawa. Mind you, over the past four years, you would be hard pressed to name one accomplishment.
Some of the other big spenders were people such as the late Jack Layton who was required to spend much of his time travelling to all parts ofCanada as a speaker at major events. We would suspect that nobody is particularly eager to listen to a speech by Mr. Brown. Besides speaking in a nasal, whiny voice, he does not seem to have anything interesting to say.
Mr. Brown spent most of our money last year (and in previous years) on sending mailings to Babel households to promote himself. To give him an excuse for the mailing, it is often about a charity that he is using as an excuse for the mailing. While the charities often resent being used in this way, they seem to feel that it is better to get some publicity for their cause instead of none.
His big event as an impresario is his hockey night. This is the one where the city gave him the Molson Centre free of charge this year to promote himself and his political party. Being an impresario must take a lot of his time and could even take some of the time of his staff, for which we pay.
It has been obvious for quite some time that it would be far more cost effective to send somebody to Ottawa who could make a worthwhile contribution to running our country. If this person would just use a little discretion in their spending, we could then afford to hire an impresario in Babel to look after promoting our charities. It would not only be cost effective but we could certainly get someone more skilled in communications and could really help our charities.
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Copyright 2011 © Peter Lowry
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