Looking For Outrage

"We have reduced the travel costs of all ministers using commercial and government aircraft by over 23 percent since forming government."
"And we have reduced the cost of ministerial travel on government aircraft by nearly 75 percent, compared to when the Liberals held office."
Jason MacDonald, director of communications, PMO

DVD2007 / 5 GBMC OAP   Harper took a Challenger jet on 113 trips between April 2011 and February 2014, at a cost of approximately $1.8 million, according to the flight manifests.

 

Another hoped-for spending scandal to embarrass the federal government with the hopes of further tarnishing its reputation through questionable imputation. Canadian media, in particular some outlets, feverishly deploy investigative journalists to try to bring to the public attention various types of what they infer to be questionable expenses by Ministers of the Crown, with the obvious intention of doing harm to the reputation of Prime Minister Stephen Harper, as not being sufficiently sensitive to the prudent use of tax dollars.

All the more so, that the Conservative Government of Canada has embarked on an austerity campaign to reduce government spending. Those measures have resulted in a campaign to reduce the size of the public service, to lower departmental costs, to abolish unneeded and redundant services, to re-think the manner in which the federal government serves the public. The result has been  a success where the government is set to post a surplus rather than a deficit in its fiscal year 2015.

But the story is emblazoned with a headline that shouts: Harper, cabinet spend millions on Challengers ... citing 113 trips by the Prime Minister using a Challenger jet between April 2011 and February 2014, at a cost of around $1.9-million, according to flight manifests. And revealing as well that Governor General David Johnston, in the discharge of his duties as the Queen's representative, spending close to $2-million on the 109 trips he took between April 2011 and February 2014 on Challenger jets.

The federal government has a fleet of six Challenger jets. Again, in a bid to save money, the Conservative government has considered divesting itself of up to four of the jets. Simply put, the jets fly empty more often than not for the purpose of ensuring that pilots maintain flying skills. And those practise flights themselves are prohibitively costly, since the nine-seat jets cost over $3,300 hourly for operational costs.

The political opposition, casting about for items through which they can cast aspersions on this government, claim abuse of taxpayer dollars through the use of the jets. Despite that it is clear from examining the manifests that over the past few years cabinet ministers have diminished their use of the jets. Only ten ministerial flights were registered between April 2011 and February 2014, but that little bit of data doesn't put a stop to the hysterical accusations.

Former finance minister Jim Flaherty used a Challenger jet in 2011 with six Finance officials in attendance to fly to Mexico City to meet with the Mexican president and other government officials in discussion of G20 items. That one-day-and-return event came in at $33,179. An expense that was repeated in February 2012 with the minister and six officials again visiting Mexico City for two nights and three days, meeting with G20 finance ministers.

Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird along with two government officials flew commercial to Africa to attend a Friends of the Syrian People Meeting in Marrakesh, Morocco. A Challenger jet then took them to a G8 Broader Middle East and North Africa meeting later that day in Tunis, Tunisia, since there was no alternate way to attend both meetings. In returning to Canada out of Africa the contingent again flew on commercial aircraft. The Challenger had been in the region, which made it a useful alternative given the circumstances.

When Joe Oliver, now Finance Minister, took a Challenger jet to Paris he had an important cabinet meeting in Ottawa immediately beforehand, and a commitment to speak at the International Energy Agency as well as to attend bilateral meetings. No commercial flights were available to permit him to fulfill both commitments, making the use of the Challenger jet a necessity. "This trip followed all guidelines on the use of Challengers for government business", explained his director of communications in Finance.

Cabinet ministers and the Prime Minister are Canada's primary political, administrative legislators. There are times and events which call upon them to be somewhere on short notice and it is reasonable to expect that they will fulfill their obligations, but they do require the means within reason to do so. That these incidents come at great cost is no great surprise. That the niggling details and the standards to which they are held are manipulated to exploit the possibility of censure taking place is also no great surprise.

But it is rather unbecoming of a Canadian news empire that should be focused on matters that are legitimately newsworthy.