Canada PoliticsNews report highlights Senators’ jet-setting ways
For months, we've heard about some 'naughty' senators allegedly filing inappropriate expense claims on housing and domestic travel.
Now, the good folks at Global News are taking an in depth look at their international Travel.
Certainly, some of these trips might be worthwhile.
But first class flights? Not telling us who went on the trips? Sitting legislators avoiding media scrutiny?
It's not a pretty sight.
[ Related: Is the media distracted by the Senate scandal? ]
Global followed-up that story with another one, on Thursday, about one Conservative Senator's frequent trips to Vatican.
According to their report, Speaker Noël Kinsella has taken five trips to the holy city in the last seven years for "audiences with the Pope, celebrating diplomatic relations, discussing faith in public life, and consolidating the relationship between the two states."
His wife apparently joined him on some of the excursions.
The Vatican visits usually last only half a day and are part of parliamentary delegations making official visits to other locations in the region.
The total cost of the trips that included a stop at the Vatican is $255,000, although the price tag of the most recent trip this past September is not yet public.
Gregory Thomas of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation suggests that he'd like to know more about Kinsella's 'visits to other locations in the region.'
Unfortunately, according to Global, Kinsella denied requests for an interview.
"If anything, the meetings at the Vatican probably provide more value for Canada than the rest of Kinsella's travel itinerary," Thomas told Yahoo Canada News.
"International Parliamentary conferences - Commonwealth Parliamentarians, etc., there are dozens of these travelling Parliamentary road shows - allow politicians to travel to exotic locations and enjoy lavish hospitality.
"None of it appears on their personal expenses and it doesn't get reported in their local media. Senators enjoy a disproportionate amount of this travel pork. The Speakers are at the top of the food chain."
[ Related: Conservatives get break from Senate scandal as House adjourns ]
Incidentally, Thomas and the Canadian Taxpayers Federation have renewed their call for a national referendum on abolishing the Senate.
On Thursday, the self-proclaimed taxpayer watchdog held a rally in British Columbia, asking the Christy Clark government to hold an open vote — on Senate abolition — in that province's legislature.
In an event press release, the CTF claim that momentum for abolition is growing.
If the NDP [abolition] motion is passed, B.C. would join Saskatchewan and Manitoba as the third province to adopt a pro-abolition stance since the CTF kicked off its abolition referendum campaign in July.
“It’s clear the Senate abolition movement is picking up steam,” said Gregory Thomas, Federal Director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
Maxime Bernier, a federal Conservative cabinet minister from Quebec, has called publicly for a referendum on getting rid of the Senate.
In October, federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty told reporters that the Senate is “disruptive of what we’re trying to do economically.”
“I’m actually an advocate of abolition of the Senate. I always have been,” said Flaherty. “In this day and age to have a non-elected legislative body is an anachronism.”
Thomas said that CTF supporters have been signing an online petition at www.taxpayer.com calling for a referendum, and bombarding MPs with calls, letters, and email messages to demand action.
“It’s time Canadians got to vote on getting rid of the Senate,” said Thomas. “This unelected bordello of backscratching has become a shameful relic of the Civil War era of the 19th century.”
Having un-elected legislators unabashedly avoid questions about their taxpayer-funded travel should help the CTF's cause.
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