Redford has undermined legitimate travel
It is ironic that the premier who has so stridently championed the importance of international travel has done so much to undermine that aspect of the job.
It’s quite plausible that the $2 million or so spent on international travel since Alison Redford ascended to the premier’s job has yielded some positive benefits. However, due to a toxic blend of arrogance and incompetence, Albertans have little by which to judge such claims, and more than enough reason for cynicism.
Take, for example, the Alberta government delegation to the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi. Or, rather, the fact that there is no such delegation.
Compare that to the Alberta government delegation to the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, England, which included the premier and two cabinet ministers. Originally forecast to cost $84,000, the final bill came in at over $500,000 — including $113,000 on unused hotel rooms.
The cost, however, was more than justified, we were told, by the benefits of the trip. At the time, the premier assured us that “every single time that we talk about Alberta overseas, we are growing markets.” As for the specifics of the London trip, she said, “we had a great opportunity to develop some strong tourism and cultural ties.”
But if half a million dollars is a small price to pay for the invaluable international exposure of the Olympics, why aren’t we in Sochi? Why is Redford not there “growing markets” and “developing strong tourism and cultural ties”? If these trips more than pay for themselves, shouldn’t we be outraged?
Of course, the other explana- tion may be that such benefits have been overstated, and that these exaggerations are a convenient way of deflecting legitimate concerns over wasteful government spending.
It’s also no doubt true that the controversy over Alison Redford’s recent South Africa trip has made her leery about embarking on any costly jaunts anytime soon.
As we learned last week, Redford’s participation in the Canadian delegation to Nelson Mandela’s funeral ended up costing taxpayers $45,000.
As a lawyer, Redford had done work in South Africa in the transition away from apartheid, and had — to some degree, anyway — worked alongside Mandela. So there was a personal connection for the premier, and a free ride on the prime minister’s plane.
A trip that should have entailed little or no cost to Alberta taxpayers turned into a quite costly episode, indeed. Rather than reschedule a speech, Redford was whisked off to Ottawa on an Alberta government plane at a cost of $15,000. The opposition Wildrose Party later pointed out that there were still commercial seats to Ottawa available at that time for a fraction of the cost.
Furthermore, the decision was made to bring along the premier’s executive assistant. His travel costs came to a whopping $20,000. And then rather than reschedule her cabinet swearing-in, Redford returned home on a last minute commercial flight costing $10,000.
None of this was relevant to the duties of being Alberta premier, and therefore none of these costs are justifiable. Even Redford herself couldn’t justify them. When pressed last week, Redford claimed she didn’t know what the costs were and had she known she might not have gone in the first place.
That seems rather incredulous, though. Did the premier not know she was on board a government plane? Was she surprised to see her executive assistant there in South Africa? Did she mistake the plane she was flying home on for the prime minister’s plane?
On Monday, she finally accepted responsibility and apologized, but said she wouldn’t pay the money back because the trip was “government business.” That doesn’t add up, either.
It all conveys an attitude that the premier should be able to go wherever, whenever and however, and if anyone asks, a justification can be created after the fact.
Hopefully the backlash over the South Africa trip will exorcise that attitude from the premier’s office. However, the resulting damage may only serve to derail future trips which might actually have accomplished something.