Minister apologizes for $10,000 in expenses
Cusanelli repays over 30 claims, including family flights to Olympics
Alberta cabinet minister Christine Cusanelli apologized Thursday for the improper expensing of more than $10,000 in airfare, meals and other bills that she has been forced to repay to the province.
Cusanelli, the minister of tourism, parks and recreation, blamed a faulty expense process in her office, saying she takes full responsibility for the mishandling of bills.
“I’m the person who is responsible for what happens in my office. That’s why I chose to pay back any of the expenses we’re talking about,” she said in a brief media scrum.
“We’re talking about a process here and I should have looked at the process better, and for that I apologize to Albertans. Because they want to know that as a government, and as minister, and as an MLA, that I am using their taxpayer dollars appropriately.”
The expenses in question were included in a massive release of documents from the government, which showed receipts submitted by all cabinet ministers and associate ministers from May to September.
Cusanelli’s expenses stood out from those of her colleagues in that there were 31 bills she had to repay, adding up to about $10,600. Included in Cusanelli’s documents were copies of six reimbursement cheques she wrote to the government — two of which were submitted last week— as well as a letter from chief of staff, Andrew Fisher, explaining the errors.
Fisher said he discovered the erroneous expenses when he took over from the minister’s first chief of staff in November.
The biggest repaid expense was $4,078 for two first-class airline tickets to London during the Olympics, where Cusanelli served as part of a provincial mission to promote Alberta. The tickets were for her mother and her daughter, who was celebrating a birthday at the time.
Fisher said the tickets were all booked on the same government credit card by the former chief of staff, who saw a deal on airfare and didn’t want to miss it. While Cusanelli always intended to pay back those extra two fares, Fisher acknowledged it was not common government practice. The documents show Cusanelli wrote a $4,078 cheque to the province on Aug. 22, about 10 days after she returned from the trip.
Asked about the flights Thursday, Cusanelli declined to say exactly when she learned her mother’s and daughter’s airfare had been booked on the government credit card. “As soon as I discovered those expenses, I ensured I was going to pay it back,” she said in an interview following the scrum.
Asked if the expense mishandling was related to her chief of staff being replaced last month, she said: “In order for me to do the best job possible, I need to have the best staff possible.”
Premier Alison Redford said Thursday she was “disappointed” in her minister’s actions but felt the issue had been resolved with Cusanelli paying back the expenses.
“She was advised that she had to ensure that she compensated for them, and she did that. And that’s all I need to know.”
However, Wildrose Leader Danielle Smith was less forgiving. “As a rookie (minister), you can understand a mistake or two, but as I understand it, there were over 30 mistakes,” Smith said. “Ms. Cusanelli was principal of a school before she got into politics, so she is a seasoned administrator. So I’m skeptical that these were just honest mistakes.”
She said the incident shows why there needs to be increased scrutiny of government behaviour.
“With someone like Ms. Cusanelli, she was supposed to be the new face of the party. This shows that even young women can have the same attitude as the old boys.”
Among Cusanelli’s other reimbursed items were $850 for unknown “Calgary Stampede materials,” and $965 for “ministry travel materials.”
Asked about the Stampede items, Cusanelli offered few details, saying they were “pins” and other things her staff thought she would need. She said she paid back the money and the items were returned. “Those were expenses obviously that shouldn’t have been put through on my government credit card so, of course, the appropriate thing to do was reimburse it,” she said. “They would be Stampede-related expenses — plans that we had made that we actually didn’t wind up doing, so in fact, at the end of the day I paid the expenses back and also returned the items. Without getting into the weeds on all this stuff, things like pins, things like that.”
Fisher said some of the problematic receipts were submitted as ministerial expenses when they should have been covered as an MLA expense or living allowance.
“I take my job very seriously. I came here to do good work,” Cusanelli said. “I didn’t come here to get a free meal. I didn’t come here to misuse taxpayers’ dollars. I have always established a trusting relationship with the people I work with.
“There is not a dime of taxpayers’ money that has been used for my personal use. I paid back whatever was considered to be needing to be paid back as soon as I possibly could.”