Sky-high costs and lack of details highlight Redford London expenses

EDMONTON, AB (November 16, 2012): Over $12,000 dollars for a round-trip flight to London with a pit-stop in Paris, complete with gaping holes in Premier Alison Redford’s expenses, is another ding to hardworking Alberta taxpayers, the Wildrose Official Opposition said today. 

Redford’s expenses to the Olympics, which were quietly released to the Legislature library, are a part of almost a million dollars spent on the London Olympics, including $113,000 dollars on unused hotel rooms.  The $12,555.51 spent on flights is almost double the executive rate for a round-trip from Edmonton to London. 

The expenses posted failed to list any details on any costs spent on food or incidentals and once again failed to keep the Premier’s promise of having all expenses available online and available for the public to see. 

“It’s hard to believe Ms. Redford is willing to justify taking on debt, breaking her promise on balanced budgets and giving her MLAs an 8% pay raise while she burns through her expenses at the Olympics,” Wildrose Official Opposition Leader Danielle Smith said.  “These latest expenses are another example that Ms. Redford is unable to keep her promises and treat taxpayer dollars seriously.” 

Other expenses from the London Olympic trip from Redford, as listed by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, include an additional $1,860 on hotel rooms and $2,275 on car service during her time in London. 

Smith has released all her expenses broken down in an online format at wildrose.ca/expenses, which exceeds the PC government’s expense policy by including constituency and caucus expenses as well. 

Wildrose Deputy House Leader Shayne Saskiw said that stonewalling from Ministers along with details missing from these latest expenses are yet another example of this government’s half-hearted measures to address the PC culture of entitlement. 

“We’re seeing it in the new whistleblower legislation that protects government from whistleblowers instead of ensuring accountability, and a ‘transparent’ expense policy that is mostly opaque,” Saskiw said. “This is just more of the same old PCs, out of touch and only in it for themselves.” 

-  30 -