Travel tab for Moe, cabinet tops $284K for 8 months

REGINA Since taking over the premier’s office roughly nine months ago, Scott Moe and members of his cabinet have travelled around Canada, to China, Israel, Mexico and the United States several times.

Next week, for the second time in roughly a year, a Saskatchewan minister will travel to India.

Minister of Trade and Export Development Jeremy Harrison defended the travel on Thursday.

“I’m not going to stand here and apologize for international travel,” Harrison said.

Detailed information on recent trips is not yet publicly available, but from the end of January to the end of September, Moe and his cabinet spent $284,628 in travel. That does not include recent trips taken, such as the Israel trade mission last month.

The most expensive travel under Moe’s tenure was the nine-day trip he took to China in September.

Accompanied by Everett Hindley (Swift Current MLA and legislative secretary to Harrison) and four senior officials, the party of six spent $98,826, including $54,012.06 on air travel alone.

According to the travel disclosure statement, the purpose of the trip was “To advance Saskatchewan’s trade, investment and carbon capture and storage (CCS) interests with China.”

A news release from the province said the trip was “successful.”

Moe told reporters the trip was “productive” in “advancing Saskatchewan’s trade efforts with a number of organizations and businesses in that country.”

But no trade deal was signed as a result of the weeklong voyage that saw Moe and a Saskatchewan delegation make stops in Beijing and Heilongjiang province.

Moe is responsible for the five most expensive trips taken by Saskatchewan cabinet members between January and the end of September. A trip to New Brunswick to attend the 2018 Summer Meeting of Canada’s Premiers cost taxpayers $18,086.

An Arizona trip in May cost $14,468, while one to Washington, D.C., ran up a $13,156 tab. The trip to Arizona was intended to “Attend the 2018 North American Summit to meet with subnational leaders from Canada, the United States and Mexico and provide Saskatchewan’s perspective on free trade, energy security, investment and supply chains.”

The Washington trip in June was to “advance Saskatchewan’s (SK) interests in the U.S., by emphasizing the importance of the Canada-u.s. trade relationship and the potential harm caused by recent U.S. trade actions.”

Harrison justified the travel by saying the province needs to “be engaged.”

“If we’re going to continue to see continued growth in our economy … the best way to do that is opening new markets,” he said, adding the best way to do that is to “establish new markets through trade.”

NDP Leader Ryan Meili said he has “no problem” with useful travel of value to Saskatchewan, but said that is “difficult to measure.”

He suggested the province sets “goals or intentions” before going on trips, so the province can’t return from a trade mission and announce “everything is a success.”

“We need to have realistic and meaningful goals when we do this,” he said, adding a recent trip to Toronto by Moe to bash the carbon tax with Ontario Premier Doug Ford was “political.”