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The repayments by Ovens and Marques follow this week’s news that Butts and Telford were reimbursed for moving costs totalling $207,000 ($126,669 for Butts; $80,383 for Telford. He has since said he will repay $41,618 and she will pay back $23,373).

To put all this in context, the policies governing these payouts are long-standing. Bardish Chagger, the government’s new House Leader, pointed out in the Commons that the Conservative PMO played the same game, racking up $300,000 in relocation fees, (albeit over nine years, not nine months), including one payment of $93,131.

One senior Conservative admitted that if he had wanted to move a senior person to Ottawa, he would have urged Stephen Harper to pay full moving expenses.

Guy Giorno, a former Harper chief of staff, wrote Friday that the idea Trudeau approved any specific item was “ridiculous.” “He would simply have decided they were covered,” he said.

It is common practice in the private and public sectors, where the only way to persuade foreign affairs staff to move country is to cover their expenses, including real estate fees.

Without the lubrication of relocation fees, the labour market would seize up.

A minor panic has broken out in the Global Affairs department at the prospect that these perquisites may now be under threat.

The problem is not the concept; it’s the amounts.

The government’s relocation directive is encyclopedic about what is a legitimate claim, down to the shipment of pets and the tuning of pianos.