The Sixth Estate

Most of the government met its required deadline of May 31st to publish last quarter’s reports of contributions over $25,000 to organizations across the country. The Sixth Estate Pork Barrel update has been delayed since then because I was waiting for the last laggards — Status of Women and Transport Canada — to file their reports. Since it now seems they won’t be publishing them at all, I’m going to have to move forward without them and simply update the numbers later.

The Sixth Estate Pork Barrel tracks government spending by riding across the country, checking whether the government is distributing money fairly across the country or whether it is privileging pet projects in Conservative ridings. It includes all grants and contributions, except core operational and health funding to First Nations by Aboriginal Affairs Canada and Health Canada. This quarter’s update confirms what I have reported before: although there is clear evidence that certain stimulus programs are being directed disproportionately into Conservative ridings, overall the government actually spends slightly more in Opposition ridings than it does in government ones. The following chart shows the average amount of money spent per riding on both sides of the House:

This data comes with a monstrous caveat, however. Last quarter, the government poured more than $240 million into just six Opposition ridings: Ottawa Centre (NDP), Ottawa-Vanier (Liberal), Toronto Centre (Liberal), Trinity-Spadina (NDP), Vancouver Centre (Liberal), and Westmount-Ville Marie (Liberal). Those ridings received an average of more than $40 million each — 8 times as much as the average riding. More importantly, these 6 ridings received 40% of all Opposition grant money last quarter. If you took them out of the equation, overall the Conservatives would be spending much, much more on their own ridings than on Opposition ridings.

So being in Opposition is good… if you happen to live and work for the right organizations in dense urban centres.