Liberals say cutting MP mailings would save $10 million a year

OTTAWA - A Liberal motion to save taxpayers millions of dollars a year by eliminating MP mailing privileges outside their ridings is being given short shrift by the Conservative government.

The Liberals used their Opposition day in the House of Commons on Monday to propose rolling back government advertising, travel, use of consultants and the size of the federal cabinet in what they claimed would save more than $1 billion dollars a year.

While much of the motion appeared to be opposition mischief-making, the last item on the Liberal motion spoke specifically to the use of so-called "10-per-centers" which have flooded mailboxes over the last couple of years.

The cost of the mailings has more than doubled to over $10 million a year during the four years the Conservatives have been in office.

The one-page leaflets have sparked a number of pitched partisan battles due to some of their incendiary and unsubstantiated claims - such as Liberals claiming the government was sending First Nations body bags instead of flu vaccine and Conservatives implying that Liberal policies are anti-Semitic.

Figures presented in the Commons show the mass mailings have been used disproportionately by Conservative MPs, who racked up 62 per cent of all printing costs on 10-per-centers last year despite holding only 45 per cent of the seats in Parliament.

The Bloc Quebecois found that of 58 MPs who spent more than $50,000 each on printing costs in 2009, 54 of them were Conservatives.