Duncan chauffeured down well-travelled road
Visiting Napoleon's tomb won't likely be Crown Investment Corp. Minister Dustin Duncan's Waterloo.
Tourist missteps like the Weyburn-big Muddy MLA'S $3,500 expenditure late last year for a private Mercedes chauffeur service while in Paris on government business don't necessarily condemn the political perpetrators to their own Elba Island.
But with frivolous government globe-trotting spending seemingly getting worse, one wonders whether there may yet be consequences for this Saskatchewan Party government.
Duncan's recent travel invoices obtained by the
NDP for his trip to the World Nuclear Exhibition show taxpayers footed that $3,500 bill for the four-day rental of a private Mercedes chauffeur service (to be clear, it was a van) he also used it to visit historical sites like Napoleon's tomb. (Actually, the nuclear conference was just outside the city ... but how ya gonna keep 'em down on the farm after they've seen Paree?)
Anyway, things at the Saskatchewan legislature have gone nuclear since the NDP unveiled Duncan and his entourage employed the chauffeur service from Nov. 27 to Dec. 1 — which Duncan told reporters was a needed precaution because of a “pending” wildcat public transit strike.
Duncan added that he wound up in downtown Paris for dinner/luncheon meetings, so he decided to spend his “down time” taking in a few sights. This is why his invoices showed the Mercedes picked him up from “a famous military museum that houses the tomb of Napoleon” on Nov. 29 at 2:30 p.m.
Like the occupant of his tourist destination, Duncan's explanation of why he needed a costly Paris car service to visit Napoleon's tomb came up ... well ... a little short.
For starters, in his initial response in the chamber he said he did no sightseeing. He then said there's sightseeing everywhere you look in Paris. Perhaps he would have been wise to have followed the lead of the city's famous street mimes.
A veteran politician and former political operative like Duncan should know better. Quelle surprise. We have been chauffeured down this road before.
A decade ago, Duncan's former colleague June Draude ran up a similarly large chauffeur bill while at a conference in London. Former premier Brad Wall blamed the problem on the then-cabinet secretary (who later got into trouble for his own travel expenses). There had been a similar incident involving former deputy premier Ken Krawetz.
During that April, 8, 2014, question period exchange in the legislature, Wall reminded former NDP leader Cam Broten that in June 2006 (about the time Duncan was transitioning from political aide to MLA) former NDP premier Lorne Calvert and former NDP Crown Corporation minister Eric Cline were in hot water for a similar chauffeured $1,900 three-day car service cost.
Yes, it was in Paris. Yes, it included a Sunday “off-day” sightseeing tour.
“This practice has been going for too long,” Wall told the chamber that day. “The expense should not have been born by the taxpayers. The expense on this side for the ministers (Krawetz and Draude) involved has been paid back.”
Yet here we are a decade later with no minister paying back expenses or even apologizing because Premier Scott Moe says he makes no apologies for his travel.
In fact, the premier, while defending Duncan's expenditure, calling him an honourable and outstanding member of the legislature ... presumably because he had been out, standing, under the Arc de Triomphe waiting for his chauffeur.
A decade later, we appear to be travelling backwards. Politicians are arguably taking more costly trips with even more frivolous spending. We really can't be sure. There ought to be a cost audit.
The thing is, like Draude and Krawetz, Duncan is hardly the worst offender of his day. One shudders to think what's in the $100,000-a-year travel itinerary of Moe and Trade and Investment Minister Jeremy Harrison, who have kept such details of their trips rather closely guarded.
At least in the Wall years, there was an awareness of such travel excess. Today, under Moe, there seems no political consequences ... although voters might feel otherwise come the October election.