If you want to send a message to a Member of Parliament, why not do it through the magic of an all-expense-paid trip? Make it a week, or more, and invite their spouses. It's a good way to influence people with influence.
It is perfectly legal, and in accordance with the rules. MPs simply have to report when someone else has sponsored their travel – an organization, or a foreign government, or an NGO, or a private company. MPs take scores of those trips every year. It's common.
But the public is ahead of the politicians. They don't like the idea of people paying for politicians to go on a junket. They're right. This is the wrong way for the MPs to see the world.
Public opinion is unusually clear. A Nanos Research poll for The Globe and Mail, published Monday, found that 86 per cent consider it "unacceptable" or "somewhat unacceptable" for MPs to accept paid trips from organizations or foreign governments. Most didn't need to qualify their opinion: 73 per cent of the 1,000 people surveyed said it was just unacceptable.
It is not hard to see why. MPs are governed by a Conflict of Interest Code that prevents them taking gifts that might influence them, but sponsored trips are an exception under the code.
But a trip can be a gift, too. And if you are trying to influence an MP, it is probably better.
In a few cases, the travel is a straight gift. In 2013, Scott Brison, now President of the Treasury Board, took two trips when he was an opposition MP to meetings of the Trilateral Commission (in Mexico City and Dublin) travelling on the private jet of Nova Scotia grocery-store magnate Donald Sobey. Mr. Sobey wasn't organizing the meeting, just flying Mr. Brison there. Mr. Bison said Mr. Sobey is a friend and it had nothing to do with politics.
There are also corporate junkets: In 2012, Vancouver-based Goldcorp Inc. brought four MPs to Guatemala for a three-day tour of its controversial Marlin mine.
But most of the trips are sponsored by somebody who wants MPs to see the world their way.
There were trips financed by the governments of Qatar, Lebanon and the United States in 2016, the most recent year for which public reports were available. Many others were financed by NGOs.
There's nothing wrong with MPs taking trips. They should travel to understand international issues – but this is one area where they should spend taxpayers' money, if it's worth the trip.
Most of the organizations sponsoring MPs' travel have nothing nefarious in mind, other than influencing their thinking. But having MPs fly off on paid junkets, especially when they're paid by foreign governments, won't make for good Canadian foreign policy.
The sponsors think it works. The Taiwanese can't be blamed for looking for allies when China views them as illegitimate usurpers. But their lobbying has at times had almost a comical effect. In the 2000s, many Conservative MPs were Taiwan hardliners – and when, a decade ago, a new Taiwanese government wanted to warm ties with Beijing, it found the caucus of the governing Conservatives more hardline than its own government members.
Two organizations do the lion's share of the sponsoring. One is the Chinese International Economic Cooperation Association, a Taiwanese business organization that is effectively an arm of Taiwanese diplomacy. Over four years – 2012, 2013, 2014 and 2016 (2015 is excluded since it was an election year and MPs didn't do much travel) – the CIECA sponsored 55 trips to Taiwan for MPs on week-long junkets with MPs' spouses or partners, worth about $8,000 to $15,000.
The other is the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, the Canadian pro-Israel lobby, which in the same four years (excluding 2015) paid for 61 trips for MPs and spouses. Typically, they cost about $10,000.
David Cooper, CIJA's director of government relations, said the trips show MPs things they can't understand in Ottawa. CIJA's perspective is explicit, but MPs go to Ramallah and hear from Palestinians invited by Canadian officials, not CIJA.
"I think we provide a real opportunity for Parliamentarians to learn about issues in the region from a multitude of voices, either Canadian officials, or Israeli officials, or Palestinian," he said.
It's still hard to justify the international education of MPs by sponsors. If you don't so much mind the Taiwanese paying for political junkets, you might feel differently about trips funded by China or Russia, or organizations working on their behalf. Better that MPs do it on the public dime and stay independent.