Travel expenses: Are politicians only sorry when they’re caught?

We may be reaching a tipping point when it comes to citizens' tolerance of our political class's sense of entitlement. Politicians may be starting to realize it, but they still only seem to acknowledge it when they're caught.

The latest outbreak of perk remorse comes from the left coast, where two New Democrat MLAs and the speaker of the B.C. legislature, who's a Liberal, have cut cheques in the last week to reimburse taxpayers for dubious travel expenses.

On Wednesday, the NDP's Raj Chouhan, who also happens to be deputy speaker, refund the $2,200 cost of taking his wife with him on a South African junket last year. It follows Speaker Linda Reid's decision to pay back $5,500 in government funds used to bring her husband on the same trip. Why the travel cost of Reid's spouse was more than twice as much as Chouhan's is anyone's guess.

Last week, New Democrat MLA Jenny Kwan repaid $35,000 for vacation trips bankrolled by the Portland Hotel Society. The society is a sprawling non-profit that gets most of its funding from the B.C. and federal governments to work on Vancouver's Downtown Eastside. Kwan said she was unaware her then-husband, who was a Portland Hotel director, had not paid for her travel out of his own pocket. She has stepped aside from the NDP caucus.

Kwan's situation aside, it was accepted policy to allow spousal travel for MLAs leaving on government business.

[ Related: NDP MLA Jenny Kwan repaying $34K for Europe, Disney trips ]

But it's become political kryptonite since a furor over sky-high travel expenses in neighbouring Alberta drove Premier Alison Redford from office this month.

Redford was forced to apologize and repay $45,000 spent to attend the memorial for Nelson Mandela in South Africa and about $3,000 for the cost of bringing a playmate for her young daughter on government flights.

Contrition didn't help, though, as a revolt in her caucus and rumblings from the Conservative Party executive forced her to step down.

In a figurative kick in the pants on her way out, it was revealed Redford's last official overseas trip as premier in January cost $131,000, including a flight to London for an unscheduled weekend getaway, CBC News reported.

Senator Pamela Wallin last year paid back almost $139,000 in questionable travel expenses – though she didn't disavow them – and she also faces an RCMP investigation for alleged fraud and breach of trust.

Clearly the public climate has changed when it comes to perks that were once taken for granted. What's not so clear is whether politicians are internalizing that change.

Reid, for instance, justified taxpayers' paying her husband's way to Africa this way: "It's what this place has always done."

"And that’s the problem," complains Vancouver Province columnist Michael Smyth. "Politicians are stuck in an outmoded and discredited system of entitlements, while people in the real world struggle to make ends meet."

Critics point out politicians only seem contrite when their spending habits are exposed.

“This buy-now-pay-when-caught routine needs to come to an end,” said Dermod Travis of the accountability group Integrity B.C.

Canadian Taxpayers Federation B.C. director Jordan Bateman agrees.

"Reid is only paying it back because she got caught," Bateman told Smyth.

Chouhan said he volunteered to pay his wife's travel costs but Reid assured him he didn't have to ante up.

"Exactly," Smyth observed. "Now he’s sorry. So is Reid. But why didn’t they feel that way until the expenses were exposed?"

A day after revelations over Reid's spousal travel, the B.C. legislature released a list of travel expenses incurred by "accompanying persons," CBC News reported.

The province's 85 MLAs spent $125,310 for so-called Accompanying Person Travel Expenses on 233 trips from April 1, 2013 — when records began — to Dec. 31, 2013, according to the data, CBC News said.

Vancouver Sun political columnist Vaughn Palmer also noted the odd coincidence that Reid repaid her husband's travel expenses Tuesday, the same day reporters were asking about the trip. She contended the repayment was already in the works after travel expenses were being reviewed by a legislature committee, which Reid happens to chair.

“We began a discussion yesterday and we were going to conclude it today,” she explained, according to Palmer. “So it was just your luck that you were there for finance audit committee today.”

[ Related: Premier Alison Redford repays $45K cost of South Africa trip ]

Palmer is dubious of Reid's claim that things are changing when it comes to transparency and accountability.

“Practice has changed," Reid told reporters this week. “Practice needs to evolve. We need to refine as we go forward, and I’m happy to lead on changing . . . Changing course on practice is tough work, but we’ll get there.”

Reid's record suggests a different story, Palmer said, pointing not just to her foot-dragging over year-old travel expenses but also the hiring of her campaign manager to work in the speaker's office and nagging questions over $70,000 spent to renovate her constituency office.

Former B.C. Auditor General John Doyle slammed the accounting practices and financial management of the legislative assembly in his 2011 report, but former Speaker Bill Barisoff sat on the report for almost a year. No wonder.

"If the legislative assembly were a public company, it would be delisted," Doyle wrote.

There was a flurry of activity in the wake of the report but Palmer said the latest expense revelations suggest "the assembly has scarcely been in any rush to live up to expectations."

"Based on the record to date, you have to be skeptical that the legislative assembly will ever clean up its act," Palmer wrote.

ew Democrat MLA Jenny Kwan