MP McLeod should set the riding free from those partisan junk-mail ‘householders’

TUESDAY MORNING EDITORIAL — There’s a wooden bin beside one of the community mailboxes that people often use to discard unwanted newspaper flyers. At the moment, there are also quite a few of MP Cathy McLeod’s “House to House” flyers in it.

That little pile of flyers is an indication of the lack of interest people have in the so-called MP “householders” that arrive periodically. Not that they aren’t necessarily interested in what federal politicians are doing, nor that they intend any disrespect to McLeod.

But the householders — sometimes called ten percenters — are a poor investment of taxpayers’ money. This latest one consists of a single folded sheet about the size of a tabloid newspaper page. The front includes “A Message From Cathy” about the Conservative government’s Economic Action Plan 2014 that simply says this particular edition of House to House outlines some of the budget’s contents.

The second and third pages are filled with a bullet list from the budget. The fourth page has five photographs of various activities attended by McLeod and a tribute to Barriere resident Manne Salle on his 100th birthday, which is nice.

Aside from the tribute to Mr. Salle, this edition of the householder is devoid of anything specific to constituents. It’s a safe guess that most people heard about the new budget quite some time ago.

And, of course, there’s the usual “Have Your Say” survey that asks the question, “Do you believe it is important for the government to balance its budget by 2015-16?”

Gosh, that’s a tough one. We’re thinking, yes, it’s a good idea. So, carry on, Harper government.

It’s possible to make these questions more interesting. In his own latest householder, for example, Industry Minister James Moore asks constituents to rank the party leaders on a scale from one to five.

But it will take a lot more than that to justify the expense to taxpayers. Like so many things, the ten percenters began with good intentions as a way to keep taxpayers informed about what their MPs and government are doing.

For a long time, however, they’ve been nothing more than partisan junk mail. There are other ways for our MPs to keep us informed, and at much less expense.

As a starter, it would be a really positive thing if Cathy McLeod would announce that she simply won’t be sending any more householders to our mailboxes.