Ed Hollett over at The Bond Papers has written a spirited defense of former Liberal Cabinet Minister Oliver Langdon. I should state from the top that I never much liked Oliver Langdon and the feeling is pretty much mutual.
The Telegram is determined to keep the House Of Assembly Spending Scandal issue alive. Through freedom of information requests and meticulous research they are piecing together what many consider to be inappropriate expenditures of members allowances. While many of the questionable expenditures seem to be legally legitimate, the pressure put on individuals through The Telegram has certainly seen the public treasury recover some money it might not have gotten without a little embarrassment in the court of public opinion.
Now back to twists of Oliver Langdon, or more to the point, Ed Holllet’s defense of the indefensible. Normally, I would say without hesitation that if you read it on The Bond Papers you can take it to the bank. Unfortunately, that is not the case this time.
I spoke to a bunch of people yesterday at the House Of Assembly, former staff and a couple of people who are still employed as legislative assistants. These folks, the ones who prepare travel claims and approve them, have never heard of different compensation rates for MHA travel. The amount of money reimbursed for private vehicle usage is a fixed amount for all travel. So for argument's sake lets say an MHA, or the person that inspects elevators, gets reimbursed at $.35 a km when using his or her own vehicle. That is the rate for all travel on the provinces highways. There is no distinction between intra district travel and travel to the capital and back.
Poor Oliver. He was on the road all the time. Wearing out vehicles, racing up the and down the Burin Peninsula to get to his district. Fortune Bay -Cape-La Hune was created in 1996. There are no communities on the Burin Peninsula in his seat. The access points to his district are not all that convoluted. One takes a left on the TCH to go down route 360 to Bay d'Espoir . On the Western side of his district you take the Burgeo Highway (route 480) to Burgeo and jump on a ferry to get to Ramea. Fairly straightforward, yes. Not too difficult to keep track of at all. What is so onerous about keeping accurate mileage records? He had staff to keep track of all that stuff, did he not? No doubt someone kept track of when those Leafs were playing so those season passes did not go to waste.
The Bond Papers suggests that Langdon must have gone through cars at an incredible rate. Apparently, wear and tear on Langdon’s vehicles was an incredible expense. It would be interesting to know just how much of this private vehicle travel was done in rentals as opposed to the member’s private car. As well, it would be interesting to learn how many trips a year the member made to Grey River, McCallum and Francois, the three centrally located isolated communities along the south coast, and if he visited them by ferry or availed of a helicopter? In either case he did not drive there. Yet, he was able to claim the distance to them every time he visited his district because they helped form mid point of his district. Come on!
This is a man who spend a great part of his life in service to the people of the south coast at a time of great economic and demographic change. He was a model constituency politician who attempted to make it to every community meeting and event. It should be noted that Oliver Langdon did not fudge a travel claim, he did not mislead the accountants at the House Of Assembly. He did not commit fraud. He has not done anything illegal. At worst he was given bad advice by the House Of Assembly whose own auditors approved the generous travel compensation arrangement, again and again. He followed the rules. If anything this just illustrates, once again, how poorly MHA’s constituency accounts were overseen by the bureaucrats entrusted with that responsibility
That does not mean that Oliver Langdon had to charge the mid-point rate 262 times. (cha ching!). He could have just submitted private vehicle expenses for the actual distances traveled. He, and he alone, elected to go with the higher amount based on kilometers not traveled. His rationale, that he could so he did, just makes it all the worse.
He should repay any monies that he might have received for kilometers he did not drive. The court of public opinion sees no rationale for this so called special arrangement that Langdon had. The idea that a member could claim a base rate of kilometers that factored in charters to isolated communities for each and every trip to the district is baffling and bizarre. It was not a practical fit and certainly it did not average out in favor of the taxpayer. You get reimbursed for travel actually incurred. Not a penny more or not a penny less. That makes sense. Hats off to The Tely!
12 comments:
You haven't it clear in your attack on the "indefensible": are you saying Langdon submitted false claims?
Ed:
I think I was pretty clear. He made choices that were all legal and above board. that does not mean that his position from a taxpayers point of view is an easier to defend.
Have you been able to find something to substantiate this two tier travel claim process that you talked about? Can you show me all of the wear and tear costs from all that travel in a private vehicle? Have you taken the time to examine the road network leading to and from Fortune Bay- Cape La Hune to ensure you get it right next time.
Waiting for the information but I will not hold my breathe
Perhaps, Peter, you might actually answer the question unequivocally:
do you believe Langdon submitted false claims?
That's the crux of the Telegram piece.
Is that your contention?
The telegram said nothing of the kind. It was all above board in terms of acceptability to the bean counters on the hill.
The real question is why the diffusion from you. My contention is that you have a lot of your information wrong and the Telegram, in my humble opinion did a much better job with the information at hand.
Did you deliberately set out to mislead ? were you spun the wrong information?
Interesting that you are refusing to answer a simple and direct you won't answer a simple and direction question.
You labelled Langdon's claims were "indefensible."
Do you believe Langdon submitted false claims?
I did not say, nor do I believe that Oliver Langdon falsified his travel claims.
The House Of Assembly's accountants acceptance of a special formula that compensated him for estimated costs verses actual costs is indefensible. Getting reimbursed for travel submitted in the form of Private Vehicle Mileage based on points that can not be reached by road is simply ridiculous.
What is next. When a government employee flies to Corner Brook on a seat sale. They should add up the kilometers from St. John's and submit the one that provides the best return to the employee? I can just imagine how that would be received.
Really , do you think that by traveling to a meeting in St. Alban's and back to St. John's he should have been reimbursed as if he had driven to Grey River which is not even accessible by road. Defend that! He was entitled to any travel he completed.
By the way has anyone obtained a minute from the IEC meeting when this special arrangement was approved. Perhaps someone can tell exactly who approved it and when.
Peter, you stated clearly the following:
That does not mean that Oliver Langdon had to charge the mid-point rate 262 times. (cha ching!). He could have just submitted private vehicle expenses for the actual distances traveled. He, and he alone, elected to go with the higher amount based on kilometers not traveled. His rationale, that he could so he did, just makes it all the worse.
He should repay any monies that he might have received for kilometers he did not drive.
In other words, you argue he submitted false travel claims.
At exactly the same time, you state that Langdon "did not fudge a travel claim, he did not mislead the accountants at the House Of Assembly. He did not commit fraud. He has not done anything illegal...".
These two positions are irreconcilable. One cannot claim that Langdon on the one hand needs to repay money for travel he did not make - i.e. that he submitted false claims - and then at the same time say that nothing was done improperly or illegally.
It is entirely possible that had Langdon submitted detailed claims, the amounts due him would be higher than those actually claimed. You do not allow for this possibility, preferring instead to attack Langdon.
You lampoon the suggestion that he drove heavily and at the same time allow he was a model constituency man, attending all manner of events in his district. Again, these two things cannot live in the same space yet you try to make it happen.
You ignore entirely, of course, the fact that the indicated travel in one year - 65,000 kilometres - is over three times the normal average mileage for a driver to put on a car in a given year of normal operation.
All this suggests either that:
- you have not thought your position through at all; or,
- you are aware of the discrepancies, but have elected to attack Langdon for some other reason, thus far unconsidered.
Which is it?
Ed:
Your logic is flawed. Mr. Langdon requested reimbursemnt for travel to the distict and within the district. If he was only claiming the distance to the district and back you might have an arguement.
I had not considered that he might have claimed less kilometeres than he traveled because under the special arrangement that was not possible.
The arrangement with the mid-point located where no roads are located was part of each claim as approved by the beancounters at the House Of Assembly.
He did not submit false travel claims. The formula that he was allowed to use was flawed to his advantage.
I never discounted that he was a heavy traveller. As a matter of fact. We agree that he should be compensated for all his private vehicle usage as it related to constituency business.
I still argue that even if he travelled 100,000 km a year that he could easily have kept records of his travel. The road networks into his district were straight forward. Two major road routes and four ferry routes. I fail to understand why the House Of Assembly would allow the practice of claiming private vehicle useage for great stretches of the coast that are unserviced by road. Certainly the vehicle is parked at some wharf somewhere. Not my call though.
You show me an an examople of where what he submitted was less than what he should have received. Your justification of the special arrangement is flawed and based on at least three false premises. The geographic size of his district, the amount of wear and tear and some fictional two tier travel arrangement.
Get your facts straight.
my logic is not falwed; yours is.
You clearly stated Langdon should pay back money for travel he did not take. In other words you are accusing him of submitting false claims.
You have no evidence of this whatsoever, yet you make the comment.
Confront with this point you attempt to deflect. You provide no evidence to back up your claim. Within the body of your post you deny making any claims that Langdon did anything wrong at the same time you claim he did something wrong.
Those are the facts about your argument and your position and they are as straight as they can be, given the inconsistencies in what you are trying to present.
You've been caught out very seriously here in a rather odd attack on a very particular member of the legislature.
You have made a lengthy series of comments about Langdon and yet you have no evidence to back it up. langdon was one of a great many members of the legislature - perhaps including your former bosses - who fell under the same practice of inaqeuately documenting travel.
The Auditor General reported - if memory serves - that the bulk of the travel he examined carried inadqueate documentation.
The, of course, there's the issue you alone have introduced, namely the idea that langdon claimed for sea and air travel under the road travel alotment. This is nowhere to be found but in your comments. You do not explain why.
This, of course, leads us to another curious point about your post.
At no point in the post or indeed anywhere on your blog do you indicate that you were an executive assistant to at least one member of the legislature during the period in question, a chief of staff in the opposition office (and hence someone who worked with Langdon) and someone who may well have been involved to one extent or another in preparing travel claims during this entire period.
You leave that out entirely although this information would be extremely important for anyone reading this post. That's a crucial lack of disclosure.
My facts are straight. Yours seem to be convoluted, or in some cases not readily disclosed.
Ed:
I did not prepare any travel claims for any member of the House Of Assembly while in the opposition office.
My experience with members claims is exactly why I questioned your inaccurate suggestions about how private vehicle mileage was calculated. I went a step further and consulted with officials with the House of Assembly on this two tier process that you wrote about to determine if there was something I was unaware of. It turns out that you were wrong.
All I know is that when I prepared travel claims for MHA's in the past the amounts claimed were for actual travel from point a to b. There was no special formula or arrangement which is why I was surprised to learn of one.
Again Ed, I have not accused anyone of submitting false claims. Lets be clear on that. Oliver Langdon filled his claims as he was directed by those who approved the claims. He followed proper procedure according to the rules that were in place. I take issue with a process that pays an individual for private vehicle travel that exceeds the real distance traveled. You seem to think that is fine because it made things less complicated.
Again. I believe the special arrangement approved by the accountants that allowed for a set rate of travel for each trip to the district was flawed. It certainly can not be considered falsification of documents if the MHA in question was following the procedures set forth by the accountants in government. It was a poor practice that did not reflect actual distances traveled which is why it got flagged by the AG in the first place.
We will have to agree to disagree on repayment. Perhaps Langdon will take your advice and sue the AG, The Telegram and me if he wishes.
Ed:
You got your facts wrong, period.
I disagree with you.
The process was flawed.
There is no way to travel to the mid part of that district by road. thus the per kilometer rule could not apply. The only way to get there was by boat or by air. That part of any trip would have been claimed differently as the member would have been reimbursed for the cost of the ferry ride or the air craft charter. I just do not understand the logic of being permitted to charge the equivalent amount of reaching the mid-distance (which is isolated) of the district each, time the member traveled to the district, regardless of the destination point.
Anyways...I think you want to get to another point...lets not keep me in suspense...spring the trap ed...I am eager to deal with that as well.
Peter:
Perhaps if you'd deal directly with the question you'd spend less time wondering what 'trap' is about to be sprung.
As it turns out the "trap" is entirely within your own imagination.
For whatever reason, you've chosen to engage in an attack on Oliver Langdon.
You have essentially accused him of pocketing money he wasn't entitled to receive. You've dragged in other accusations and on top of it all that you've then denied doing or saying anything of the sort.
I asked you to answer a simple question and you have consistently refused to do so. That would seem to me to be indicative of a serious problem on your part with the argument you've presented.
As a final note in my previous comment, I noted that you failed to disclose relevent information about your familiarity with the issue of MHA travel. That information would add to an appreciation of your perspective.
I stated that you had worked as an executive assistant to an MHA and as de facto, chief of staff in the opposition office. As such you were quite familiar with the process and the issues.
You were aware - or ought to be aware - whether or not the general rules (lack of detailed submissions on travel, as the AG reports) that applied to Langdon applied to everyone. They did.
Here's how I put it:
"At no point in the post or indeed anywhere on your blog do you indicate that you were an executive assistant to at least one member of the legislature during the period in question, a chief of staff in the opposition office (and hence someone who worked with Langdon) and someone who may well have been involved to one extent or another in preparing travel claims during this entire period."
In your reply, you chose your words very carefully:
"I did not prepare any travel claims for any member of the House Of Assembly while in the opposition office."
Italics are added here since this is a very important distinction you made presumably to avoid something.
You may not have prepared travel claims while in the opposition office, but you failed to discuss the period before that, when the Langdon travel took place.
You served as an executive assistant to a cabinet minister who, if memory serves, was a member of the Internal Economy Commission for a couple of years during the period when, according to the AG, the bulk of the administrative and other issues arose.
I don't know if you completed claims on his behalf or had a hand in them but you should be aware of the policies and issues involved. you indicated as much in your comments that you were aware and discussed the issues with others.
You picked up on one aspect of my post - a very minor one - and tried to build something out of it, but here's the crux of the issue: (I had thought there were two rates; it turns out there were supposed to be claims for intra-district travel and a separate claim for travel to and from the district but billed at the same rate).
You've attacked Langdon for submitting claims to a point somewhere in the middle of the district. You wrote: "He could have just submitted private vehicle expenses for the actual distances traveled. He, and he alone, elected to go with the higher amount based on kilometers not traveled."
Now that's a pretty clear accusation that he submitted claims for trips he did not take (Based in your simplistic view that he couldn't drive to a point in the ocean; no one said he did - except you - but that it represented an average).
However, as the AG makes plain, no member of the House was obliged to submit claims for mileage actually travelled; that is, none of them had to submit claim forms documenting anything but a total number of miles or kilometres.
The situation that applied for Langdon is the same as the one that applied to your old boss. Plain and simple. He received no special treatment on documentation and, for all we know, this averaging approach was used with other members.
You may well have completed claims for your boss which stated a raw total number of kilometres but without any supporting documentation.
So here's the thing: how did you figure them out? By what means did you track his distances? Did you/he submit each time a detailed log of his travel and the purpose of the travel, as any public vehicle mileage is tracked?
Frankly I don't understand the logic of allowing members of the legislature and maybe even their staff members to submit claims without documentation. It displays an appalling lack of concern for public funds and proper accountability.
I also don't understand your efforts to suck and blow on this issue nor your withholding relevent information about your own knowledge of the overall situation in the House.
And what I really don't understand is why you would accuse Langdon of filing claims for travel he did not take - your line about "higher amount based on kilometres not traveled" - when you have absolutely not a single shred of evidence that Langdon has done anything wrong.
You have not a stain of evidence that he did not take the travel and yet you made the accusation.
I fail to understand why anyone would do such a thing.
Perhaps you can explain how you and your old boss used to account for his travel.
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