GOVERNMENT FINE DINING.

Ontario was the big winner in the 19th Annual Teddy Government Waste Awards this year. Named after a former federal labour relations officer who promoted inter- class harmony by taking associates to expensive lunches, the awards are given out by the Canadian Taxpayers’ Federation.

At the provincial level, Ontario won for its Electric Vehicle Incentive Program. Quebec did get honourable mention — if honourable is the right word — for the $3.45 million the City of Montreal is spending to install 27 granite tree stumps in the park on Mont Royal. That would be $127,777.78 per stump.

Quebec is the smart bet for next year’s award, however, for the $ 11 million Loto- Québec recently spent giving its flagship Casino de Montréal a new 56- seat restaurant run by French chef Joël Robuchon, whose 11 restaurants worldwide have won a total of 28 Michelin stars. Eleven million dollars divided by 56 seats is $ 196,428.57 per seat, substantially more than the cost of a concrete stump. I guess the extra $ 68,650.79 is for comfy padding.

You may have read Graeme Hamilton’s story in the National Post about the verbal food fight in Quebec’s National Assembly over the secret no- bid contract for the Robuchon franchise.

The questioning was led by the opposition Parti Québécois critic for (what else?) agriculture and food. His attack, sadly, was vintage gastro- nationalist: why weren’t Quebec’s best chefs given a chance to bid on this contract? Doesn’t the minister think Quebec’s chefs are any good? In this age of Trump, there are mercantilists everywhere, it seems.

The minister answering for the Liberal government was actually the minister of finance, the often very sensible Carlos Leitão, who hit back by accusing the PQ of being inward- looking. If Quebec closed its restaurants to French chefs, the world could close its restaurants to Quebec’s chefs and where would we and they be then? Global free trade in chefs! Good for the minister. Unfortunately, other defenders of the deal haven’t got the internationalist message, instead touting the fact that 70 per cent of the food served in the restaurant is from Quebec.

But, using Leitão’s logic, if we keep other countries’ food out, won’t they block ours in return? And where will our farmers be then?

It is symptomatic of this state- run protectionist age that nobody went after the even more fundamental lunacy of the minister of finance having to stand up in Question Period and hold forth on the wisdom or not of his government having hired a millionaire chef. What is a government doing hiring any kind of chef, millionaire or otherwise?

The minister’s argument is that Loto- Québec, though an arm of the government, operates on a commercial basis. If it decides the best way to attract high- stakes gamblers to Montreal is with a high- price restaurant in its glitzy casino, we have to trust its commercial judgment — even if it’s the commercial judgment of a statemandated monopolist. ( I’m assuming the casino is glitzy, by the way. The last time I visited was at Expo 67, where it was the French pavilion.)

In the minister’s telling, Loto- Québec only spent the $11 million because it believes Chef Robuchon is such a draw it will make back much more than the $11 million from the crème de la one- per- cent who are willing to come here, stuff themselves on gourmet food and then wander off drowsily to the gaming tables to lose stacks of money. It would be very interesting to see details of the decision- making behind this strategy and whether it was the result of careful analysis of the market for gourmand gamblers or simply the whim of some LotoQuébec marketing manager with access to an $ 11- million budget and a passion for pretentious dining, rather like the federal official after whom the Teddies are named.

Before going into politics, Finance Minister Leitão was a respected bank economist. I doubt whether, in that capacity, he ever recommended that Quebec should attend to its financial needs and improve its vast and unresponsive health and education bureaucracies by persuading rich foreigners to come here and drop big money at government-run casinos.

Perhaps the embarrassment of having to get up in the National Assembly and defend such a convoluted fiscal contraption will send him back to first economic principles.

The private sector should run restaurants and casinos — subject to public regulation, if there are health and safety reasons for regulation. The government should tax at low rates whatever economic activity emerges, and it should supply only those services whose value exceeds the cost of the taxation and that the private sector has no incentive to provide.

Restaurant and gambling choices can then be left with consumers, where they belong.

WHAT IS THE PROVINCE DOING HIRING ANY KIND OF CHEF, MILLIONAIRE OR OTHERWISE?