Keddy scores an own goal with partisan cheque

Gerald Keddy has scored an own goal on his Conservative team and given the Liberals a concrete example of the Harper government acting in a partisan way with taxpayer money. It may seem like a small thing but small things have a way of sticking, just ask David Dingwall. When the former Liberal cabinet minister was hauled before a Commons committee looking into claims his expenses were out of line, two things stuck with the public, the fact that Dingwal had expensed his Chiclets gum and his statement that he was “entitled to his entitlements.”

Keddy is not alone in putting the Conservative logo on an infrastructure cheque, the Liberals are quick to point to other examples including British Columbia Conservative MP Colin Mayes. To put it bluntly their actions are stupid for two reasons

1. 1. This clearly violated guidelines put out by Treasury Board, the government department in charge of government spending and government imaging.
2. 2. This takes the focus off the Conservative plan of steady as she goes governing and puts it back on government missteps and it is the wounds you inflict yourself that can hurt your party the most, just ask the Liberals of late.

I’ve spoken with several Tory staffers on this; none are willing to defend Keddy and company for moves described by their own as “boneheaded” and “stupid.” One Nova Scotia Tory, who disagrees with what Keddy has done, could only shake his head on Wednesday and say, “Well, things are done a little differently in Nova Scotia,” the statement said with an air of exasperation rather than as a defence of a colleague’s actions.

The Prime Minister’s Office tells me they have now sent out a directive to all Conservative MPs telling them that party logos are NOT to be placed on novelty cheques again. The PM’s spokesman Dimitri Soudas appearing on CTV’s Power Play with Tom Clark on Wednesday to tell the government’s side of the story. Sounds fairly cut and dry, story over, except…..

Susan Delacourt  is raising questions on her politics blog at The Toronto Star over whether this really is the government being all contrite. She points to a story she did back in July about Public Safety Minister Peter Van Loan appearing in the Town of Inisfil with a giant cheque and his signature on it. Delacourt has some good questions for Soudas who she describes as being dismissive of questions about whether Van Loan’s cheque was appropriate back in July.

Still I’ll quibble with my colleague Susan on this point, while Van Loan’s signature on the cheque is over the top, at least the cheque in question here features the Government of Canada logo, Keddy’s does not, nor do many others.

To answer one of Susan’s questions, “And, since when did MPs start doing anything independently in this government? Did all these MPs and ministers just head to to the copy shop and get these cheques printed up themselves, by huge coincidence?”

Well, the answer is, yes they did just head to the copy shop. You can see clearly from the cheques that are used to damn the government that there is no single style used, Clark displayed several different style of cheques while quizzing Soudas; some with party logo, some just with the MPs name, all styled differently. According to on Conservative staffer I spoke with who has been involved in staging these events for local MPs, neither the government, nor the party furnish the MPs with a standard giant cheque for presentation.

To be clear some MPs are doing it right as evidenced by Natural Resources Minister Lisa Raitt, presenting a cheque to the Town of Milton with both the Government of Canada and Government of Ontario logos on the cheque. Whether her signature is on the prop I can’t tell, but I’d suggest Keddy and the others might want to call Raitt’s  office to find out which print shop they are using.

Brian Lilley is the Ottawa Bureau Chief for radio stations Newstalk 1010 in Toronto and CJAD 800 in Montreal. Follow Brian on Twitter to get the latest as it happens.