North Okanagan-Shuswap MP Colin Mayes won’t be delving further into why he is one of 65 backbench MPs who the Privy Council Office has been monitoring since April 2011.
“I really have not forcefully pursued this issue, but it is my understanding that the PMO does track comments in the media by Members of the House of Commons as a resource rather than for vetting or disciplinary review,” he wrote in an email to the Observer.
In an earlier interview when the monitoring first came to light, he said he would be checking into it when he returned to Ottawa.
“Why I was one of the chosen to be on the list could be to see what is important to members regionally, or to resource messaging styles on issues that matter to Canadians,” he wrote on June 1.
Mayes added that during seven years as an MP, “I have only had two calls from the PMO referring to comments I have said.”
The monitoring came to light from a Liberal MP’s access to information request.
It showed that federal government expenditures on media monitoring, government-wide, between April 1, 2011 and March 20, 2013 cost $23 million. The Privy Council Office spent $2.4 million, which included keeping an eye on the 65 MPs.
Mayes (misspelled as Colin ‘Mays’) was listed as one of more than 400 search terms Cision Canada Inc. was contracted to monitor.
At the time, Mayes said he’s not bothered by being watched.
“The public is always monitoring me. There are people out there who maybe don’t agree or who are critical, sometimes looking for me at my weakest point. It doesn’t bother me at all. It you don’t like conflict and don’t want to live in a glass room, then don’t run for politics.”
The issue also came up recently as Edmonton MP Brent Rathgeber has left the Conservative caucus to sit as an independent, saying that administration isn’t transparent enough and tells backbenchers what to do.
“I don’t feel I’ve been compromised,” said Mayes.
“Any time there’s an issue of concern for my constituents, I get access to a minister.”
Mayes says he also recently voted against most of the Conservative caucus on giving provinces the authority to sanction extreme fighting and there were no repercussions.
-With files from Richard Rolke, Vernon Morning Star