Overspending on non-essential signals hubris in high places.
by Geoffrey Stevens
What do these two “investments” – $16 for a glass of orange juice and $30 billion for strike fighter aircraft – have in common?
More than you might think.
Both involve the imprudent use of public funds. No Canadian cabinet minister needs to spend and charge taxpayers $16 for OJ, not even in London. No country like Canada, which lacks obvious enemies to smite with overwhelming force, needs to spend $30 billion on “stealth” aircraft designed to escape detection by enemy radar. Not when there are more suitable and much cheaper planes available, ones with proven performance.
Both the orange juice and the F-35 jets involve hubris in high places. In the case of the jets, it was the Canadian military and defence establishment, along with its political masters, Defence Minister Peter MacKay and his sidekick, Julian Fantino, the associate minister in charge of hardware, who absolutely had to have state-of-the-art aircraft. Even if the cost is out of sight, even if production is years behind schedule, and even if the planes don’t work the way they are supposed to.
If the pursuit of the perfect plane entails hiding the true cost – no, let’s call it what it is; it’s lying – so be it.
In the case of the orange juice, the hubris belongs to the minister of entitlement – sorry, minister of international co-operation. That’s Bev Oda, whose job it is to represent Canada to, ironically, the poor of the world – a job that this year involves cutting $380 million out of her aid budget. This is not the first time Oda has demonstrated an over-inflated sense of her own importance. In 2006, she and her staff ran up a $5,500 tab for limousines over three days at the Juno Awards in Halifax.
This time, it was a conference in London last June. Oda chose not to stay at the luxurious conference hotel, the $287-a-night Grange St. Paul's Hotel. Instead, she decamped for even greater luxury at the Savoy Hotel, which is favoured by Saudi princes (including the one who owns the place), hedge fund billionaires and entertainment celebrities. There, for a mere $665 a night, plus $16 for orange juice, she could feel at home.
She still had to get to the Grange for conference sessions. She could have taken public transit or a taxi (a $12 fare from the Savoy), but that’s not the Oda style. She hired a limo at about $1,000 day for three days.
The Oda episode, like the F-35 affair, illustrates a fundamental hypocrisy within the Harper government.
The Conservatives preach restraint but they only practise it when it suits them.
The Conservatives preach restraint but they only practise it when it suits them. It is nonsense at a time of massive deficits to even contemplate spending $30 billion on jet aircraft. It is outrageous to hide $10 billion of that cost from Parliament and public.
To reduce the outrageous to the merely absurd, why are there no flinty-eyed bookkeepers checking cabinet ministers’ expense accounts, especially those of a repeat offender like Oda?
She eventually got caught (by Canadian Press), apologized and repaid the money. But that doesn’t change the fact that there is a certain inattention, a lack of care and rigour in the use of public money, whether it is orange juice and limos for Bev Oda or gazebos for Tony Clement.
Recent polls show a bump in support for the NDP since the election of Thomas Mulcair and a drop in the approval ratings for Prime Minister Harper. None of this is serious yet, but there are warnings buried in the numbers.
Taxpayers have a right to expect their governors to spend public funds as carefully as they spend their personal money and to account for it meticulously. Over time, this failure of diligence will erode the cloak of moral certitude in which the Harper government wraps itself . In the end, $16 orange juice – an extravagance every voter can understand – may hurt as much as $30 billion jets.
About Geoffrey Stevens
Cambridge resident Geoffrey Stevens, an author and former Ottawa columnist and managing editor of the Globe and Mail, teaches political science at Wilfrid Laurier University and the University of Guelph. He welcomes comments at the address below. This article appeared in the Waterloo Region Record and the Guelph Mercury.
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