Quote:
Originally Posted by Keith P.
I believe there are 30 out of town MLAs that expense an apartment. I also would guess the average amount for each is about $1500/month. They retain those apartments even though the House only sits a few months of the year. If instead you let them check in to a suite in a newly-developed Dennis Suites Hotel, you would eliminate about $500-$600K in expense claims annually, less the cost of running the place. But you would also have the opportunity to rent out those suites when the MLAs do not need them. The financial argument needs more work and I would not want the province to run a hotel, but the case seems strong on the surface.
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Reminds me a bit of The Albert @ Bay in Ottawa (
http://www.albertatbay.com). It is a "hotel" made up basically of small apartments/suites. I had a 1-bedroom there for a week (bedroom, bathroom, kitchen and living/dining room) when I was on a review panel last year. It is privately run, and is operated like a standard hotel, but also has contracts with various federal government agencies in which they get a preferred rate to put people up there. I could imagine a similar thing here with Dennis, where they could rent suites to MLAs at preferred rates during times when the house was sitting, and then outside of that they are basically just a typical suite-oriented hotel (especially since the house doesn't usually sit in the summer anyway).
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