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“There’s a distinction and it has to be made on [work you do on] behalf of the constituents you represent … and electioneering,” said Conservative MP Blake Richards, who first proposed calling Mr. Mulcair to testify. “They don’t seem to care or understand that there’s a difference.”

Mr. Richards said Mr. Mulcair has to answer for what appears to be “a clear pattern of abuses of taxpayers money,” and the NDP must repay any misused funds.

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“That the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs be instructed to consider the matter of accusations of the Official Opposition’s improper use of House of Commons resources for partisan purposes; and that the Leader of the Opposition be ordered to appear as a witness at a televised meeting of the committee to be held no later than May 16, 2014.’’

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Then party-leader Jack Layton agreed to open the Montreal office after 59 New Democrats were elected in Quebec in 2011. It was the first time the NDP had to deal with so many MPs, many of them rookies, in a province that had largely shut them out in previous elections.

The NDP has said the offices fall within the House of Commons spending rules. NDP House leader Peter Julian said the extension of Mr. Mulcair’s leadership office to ministerial offices allows MPs to hear from Canadians beyond Ottawa, and beyond the boundaries of their own ridings.

“We have to make sure that we’re out there,” Mr. Julian said. “This is not an issue and it’s been something that Conservatives have been desperately trying to make an issue.”

The NDP told the procedure and house affairs committee Thursday that the party wants Prime Minister Stephen Harper to testify about the use of parliamentary funds in his office that it says blurs the lines with party activities, such as tweets from his prime ministerial account that link to Conservative party pages.

The Conservative-dominated committee is unlikely to support this suggestion.

Postmedia News