MISSING IN ANTARCTICA
Public service has its advantages. In Calgary civic politics, city councillors earn $113,416 a year, along with a taxpayerfinanced pension plan, expenses and all sorts of other perks.
That’s why it seems odd that newly returned Coun. Diane Colley-Urquhart has chosen the weeks following her re-election in Ward 13 as the ideal time to visit Antarctica. Colley-Urquhart has already missed three consecutive council meetings and will be away from next week’s multi-day budget deliberations that are tasked with patching over a $170-million shortfall in the city’s expected expenses and revenues.
Colley-Urquhart joined council in 2000 and has a reputation for possessing a knack for finances. Her departure seems strange just as council is about to wrestle with budget deliberations, especially since her absence didn’t appear to surface during the re-election campaign.
Colley-Urquhart was one of seven suitors for the Ward 13 councillor position, and more than doubled the second-place finisher by attracting 9,118 votes. It’s possible there’s a compelling justification for Colley-Urquhart’s disappearance from her duties, but all Calgarians know for now is she’s going to “spend time with penguins and icebergs.”
The councillor calls the trip to Earth’s southernmost continent transformative.
She states the trip “has been planned for a long time” — once again raising questions about why nothing was mentioned about the absence during the election campaign.
“When I am in Port Stanley in the Falkland Islands, I will tip one for each of you and think of you,” Colley-Urquhart said in her letter to her colleagues. “Will I gain insight into global warming — perhaps!”
One assumes Colley-Urquhart will tip an alcoholic beverage for each of her colleagues who are busy doing the heavy lifting at home, not upend any of the penguins that are famous residents of the region and can be spotted every day at the Calgary Zoo. Colley-Urquhart’s antics are certain to leave a bad taste in the mouths of her constituents, colleagues and pundits.
“She’s getting paid to attend council meetings, and if she’s not attending those meetings, then she’s not doing her job,” said Colin Craig, the interim Alberta director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. “When you run for council, you know what you’re getting into.”
It’s not as though council members work seven days a week. They traditionally take a break from meetings during August, during the Stampede, two weeks at Christmas and a week in March. It seems like plenty of opportunity to schedule a so-called transformative visit to Antarctica, instead of using these critical weeks to transform the city’s bottom financial line.