Redford loves transparency — and Mexican food

It might interest you to know that on Oct. 7, 2011 — the day Alison Redford was formally sworn in as Alberta’s premier in front of hundreds of dignitaries at the legislature — she didn’t have a champagne-popping celebratory lunch. She ate Mexican at Edmonton’s Mucho Burrito, a restaurant that prides itself on, “Mucho food with Mucho quality.” Cost to taxpayers: $20.88.

It’s just one of the little tidbits you glean from digging through 1,200 pages of expense receipts covering Redford’s past 41/2 years in government, from her first day in office as justice minister up to her current spending habits as premier.

Redford released the documents on Tuesday as a symbolic gesture to mark the government’s new regulation that requires cabinet ministers and senior bureaucrats to report all their expenses. Redford’s data dump was symbolic because no one else in government is releasing expenses from the past. They’re not required to. The new rule only covers expenses going forward from Oct. 1 of this year. However, by voluntarily releasing her expenses, Redford is dem- onstrating a commitment to transparency. And a love of Mexican food. As well as a preference for business class while flying and fivestar hotels while sleeping.

Reporters are still poring over the documents — as are the opposition parties — and so far, we’ve discovered Redford claimed $85,000 in expenses during her first 10 months as premier, including $47,000 for flights, $17,000 for hotels and $10,000 for meals.

There’s no smoking gun, no example of egregious overspending, no private jet to Disneyland. There was a temporary kerfuffle when reporters discovered Redford had ordered a $24 cup of room-service coffee at the Waldorf Astoria in New York, but government officials explained it was a carafe of coffee for an in-room meeting for four people.

The opposition is questioning why Redford is having taxpayers cover her annual membership fees in the Law Society of Alberta, at a cost of $2,480 for this year, including a $100 late fee.

Redford’s press secretary says the government pays professional fees for its employees as a matter of course, even if that employee happens to be the premier.

It’ll be interesting to see if Redford asks taxpayers to pay her professional fees again next year. It’ll all depend, I imagine, on how the public reacts to her expenses this year. There’s a solid security-related argument to be made for Red- ford flying business class. Opposition politicians routinely make a big deal about how they fly economy until they become government ministers, and then complain that they need the space in business class to work. As an example, just look back to the Reform party MPs of 1993 who pledged to fly economy until they realized how much flying they needed to do between Ottawa and Alberta.

Even government politicians who pledge to fly economy while running for office have a record of sneaking up to the comfy seats at the front of the plane when taxpayers have stopped paying attention. Just look back to Ralph Klein, who promised in 1994 to use commercial flights “as much as I possibly can,” and then used government aircraft pretty much as his own private taxi service.

Albertans seem to understand the need for politicians to use government aircraft while flying around the province or flying business class on long-haul flights to China. And they probably wouldn’t think it appropriate for their premier to entertain U.S. politicians at the Super 8 hotel in Washington, D.C. But taxpayers might blanch when they hear that Redford ordered five $100 bottles of wine during a $1,200 meal at Ristorante Tosca in Washington.

Conversely, they might crack a smile when they realize most of Redford’s working meals involve a beef burrito, not Beef Wellington.

By making all of her expenses public from the first day she put a government credit card to use, Redford is achieving two goals: she is setting the standard for what she expects from her ministers and senior bureaucrats from now on. They’re on notice that everything they expense will be posted online every two months, probably making them think twice about ordering the chicken cordon bleu rather than the chicken fingers. She is also cannily getting ahead of reporters who are filing freedom of information requests into the spending habits of Alberta’s government members, especially the premier, in the wake of the scandal created in August by former health official Allaudin Merali, who claimed $346,000 in expenses over three years.

Redford’s data dump also helps provide a counterpoint after this week’s embarrassing news that the government threw away almost $114,000 on unused hotel rooms during its mission to the London Olympics.

The one thing Redford didn’t do was post her past expenses online. She had her staff drop off the 1,200 pages at the legislature’s library.

The Wildrose Party, though, helpfully scanned all the pages and has posted them on its web page.

Happy reading.