Premier Gary Doer spent $34,000 on travel in the last year, but he is trying to make his globe-trotting greener.
The travel expenses of NDP cabinet ministers in 2007-2008 were posted online Thursday, showing bills totalling $162,000 on out-of-province trips.
Doer's 17 ministers visited Israel, Australia and India in the last year, but Doer was the top traveller, thanks to several trips to Ottawa and Toronto, a trade mission to the Philippines and last-minute trip to Washington, D.C., last January to lobby against new American farm rules. He also hit Australia to speak at a climate change conference.
Since the premier has staked his legacy on making Manitoba a leader in the fight against global warming, the government has started buying carbon offsets for every flight Doer takes. He didn't do that very often last year, but starting last month, he went green on every trip.
It's not clear how many of Manitoba's cabinet ministers will follow Doer's lead.
British Columbia has made government travel carbon neutral by cracking down on unnecessary trips and buying carbon offsets to counteract every ton of greenhouse gases that trips spew into the air.
After months of promising that travel data would be posted online, the Doer government uploaded detailed expense reports for every trip outside the province in the last fiscal year. From now on, trip expenses will be posted quarterly, and Doer's trips from last year are already broken down quarterly.
"It's a good thing they are starting to become more transparent, but they have a long way to go," said Tory MLA Mavis Taillieu, opposition privacy critic.
She said more detail is still needed, and the expense reports don't make up for weak changes to the province's access to information law.
Besides Doer, some ministers got to visit far-flung locales, usually for conferences or trade missions. Healthy Living Minister Kerri Irvin-Ross went to Israel for 10 days last fall at a cost $6,800. Agriculture Minister Rosann Wowchuk travelled to India on a trade mission that ran a tab of $6,800.
maryagnes.welch@freepress.mb.ca
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