OTTAWA—A Conservative MP who wants to run in a different riding in 2015 appears to be using her taxpayer-funded privileges and supplies to mail voters in the new constituency, a move that is rankling local party members.

Some residents in Burlington and Oakville say they recently received materials from Eve Adams, even though their current MP is Transport Minister Lisa Raitt.

Adams says she has broken no House of Commons rules, and is entitled as an MP to mail materials outside her riding.

But Adams is fighting local chiropractor Natalia Lishchyna for the Conservative nomination in Oakville-North Burlington, a newly created riding that technically won’t exist until the next election.

That has raised questions about whether she is using her resources to help secure a nomination.

“My reaction was, ‘Who is she?’ I know who my MP is. I’m in Burlington. I looked it up, and Ms. Adams is in Mississauga,” said local resident Simon Taylor, who is not connected to either of the camps.

Julian DiBattista, a riding association president from Hamilton, wrote a letter of complaint Friday to Conservative party brass after his residence in Burlington, Ont. received a letter from Adams.

In the letter, DiBattista invoked the high-profile controversy surrounding three formerly Conservative senators whose disallowed expense claims led to their suspension last year from the upper chamber.

“As a taxpayer, I was incensed when I heard that Mike Duffy, Patrick Brazeau and Pamela Wallin were using resources provided at my expense for their personal gain,” DiBattista wrote.

“In this situation I am just as disturbed by the misuse of government resources to campaign for elected office.”

The Canadian Press has seen copies of two different flyers featuring the title, “Eve Adams, Member of Parliament,” under the House of Commons crest. Only the Commons envelope indicates that Adams represents the non-adjacent riding of Mississauga-Brampton North.

The flyer was mailed without a postage stamp, which indicates it was sent using taxpayer funds under an MP’s mailing privileges — a practice known in political circles as “franking.”

MPs are entitled to send mail postage-free, but Commons rules prohibit any of their parliamentary resources from being used for electoral campaigning.

“I have spent the last three years working hard in Ottawa to represent you and your family’s views, meeting with and listening to our community and working hard to build a stronger Canada,” writes Adam, who moved to the area less than two years ago.

Another flyer starts by saying that “my family and I live in Oakville, and we know first-hand that every dollar matters.”

In both cases, there is a mail-back portion for the recipient to send back comments and respond to a brief questionnaire.

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“Most importantly, you will always be able to count on my support, when you need something from Ottawa,” Adams writes.

Adams says that she has the right as an MP to use her House of Commons resources to send materials outside of her riding.

“People do mail across the country, and that absolutely is something that members of Parliament are encouraged to do and to communicate with Canadians on a wide variety of issues,” Adams said.

But the Commons internal economy committee has addressed the issue of MPs mailing into opposition ridings, ruling in 2010 that certain pamphlets can be mailed only within one’s own riding.

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