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Redford’s $45K Mandela funeral trip may signal bigger spending issues

If you're an Alberta taxpayer, how do you feel about Premier Alison Redford's apology for gassing $45,000 in flight costs to attend Nelson Mandela's funeral?

Redford admitted Monday her office botched the arrangements, which included $15,000 to use an Alberta government jet to take her to Ottawa to catch Prime Minister Stephen Harper's free ride to South Africa, and another $10,000 each for her and an aide to get back to Edmonton so she could attend the swearing in of her new cabinet.

The government also anted-up $10,000 for the aide to direct fly to South Africa because he wasn't allocated a seat on the federal government's outbound flight.

[ Related: A breakdown of $45K cost of Alberta premier's trip to Mandela funeral ]

No one begrudged Redford's desire to attend the funeral of Mandela. She worked with him during her time as a human rights lawyer working in South Africa on constitutional and legal issues in the transition from apartheid to genuine democratic rule.

But the tab has outraged many Albertans dealing with the province's bloated budget and mounting debt, and is seen as a sign of the Progressive Conservative government's chronic overspending.

“It has certainly come to my attention that there were some decisions made that week without the full and complete information that we could have had, which didn’t even follow our normal procedure in terms of trip planning. Mistakes were made," Redford said during an unrelated announcement in Calgary, according to the Calgary Herald. "I accept responsibility for that and I apologize."

Just what taking responsibility means is unclear. Redford said she would not repay the money that could have been saved had she found cheaper ways to make the trip.

“This was a trip that was part of the Canadian delegation, it was business of the government of Alberta and I attended on that basis," she said. "I certainly take responsibility for the processes in place and I apologize for that and we’re going to move forward."

No one expects the premier to be trolling Travelocity looking for discount air fares, but presumably someone ought to get at least a stern talking-to for an admitted blunder.

Her office last week suggested the fault rested with the government's International and Intergovernmental Relations Department, which offered Redford two commercial flight options that could not guarantee she'd arrive in Ottawa in time to get on board Harper's flight.

[ Related: Bureaucrats kept Redford in dark on cheaper South Africa trip options: staff ]

Some digging by the news media and Opposition Wildrose party soon turned up a couple of timely flight alternatives that would have left the government jet in the hanger.

But critics say the decision to take the executive jet to Ottawa and pricy commercial flights home from South Africa indicate Redford expects top-drawer treatment when she travels.

National Post columnist Jesse Kline wrote last week Redford could have rearranged her schedule, cancelled or postponed events to ensure she could attend Mandela's funeral "in a way that didn't place an unnecessary burden on taxpayers."

While the cost of the trip is minuscule item in a multi-billion-dollar budget, Kline observed Redford's administration has put more MLA bums in airline seats than any Alberta government in more than 40 years of Progressive Conservative rule.

International trips last year cost taxpayers more than $744,000, he said, and the total this year as of mid-January was $281,000. That presumably includes the trade mission Redford led to India last month that cost an estimated $120,000, according to the Edmonton Sun.

"The big question is: If Redford can’t be trusted to properly manage her own expenses, or those of her ministers, how can we rely on her to manage the province’s finances?" asked Klein.

Yes, $45,000 is a drop in the bucket in the big picture, but as Wildrose finance critic Rob Anderson noted, it's the kind of thing voters remember come election time.

"It's not the billion-dollar boondoggles that seem to have the most effect on people," he said. "It's the ones that they can understand, that they can relate to."