Cabinet ministers’ travel expenses posted online

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This article was published 16/10/2024 (680 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Out-of-province travel expenses for Manitoba cabinet ministers are being posted online again after a hiatus of more than a year, but the disclosure still does not include spending by accompanying political or department staff, which can be higher.

One of the posted expenses, for Families Minister Nahanni Fontaine, lists $6,649 for a trip to New York from March 10 to 15, including airfare, hotel and meal costs.

Documents obtained under the freedom of information law show the province also paid for Fontaine’s director of ministerial affairs and two members of Gender Equity Manitoba, a branch of the families department, to go to New York.

The total cost for all four individuals was $23,105, the documents state. Hotel rooms accounted for more than half the cost, while flights, ground transportation, meals and unspecified “incidentals” made up the rest.

The four attended an annual conference of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women.

Similarly, Premier Wab Kinew’s office recently posted $1,684 in travel expenses for a trip to Toronto in March that included a speech to the Economic Club of Canada and attendance at an international mining conference.

The listing does not include the expenses of senior political staff who accompanied the premier.

Wayne Ewasko, interim leader of the Progressive Conservatives, said it may be time to break with the practice of the current and previous governments and list staff expenses online as well.

“It probably wouldn’t hurt to take a look at what the policies are and the limits and those type of things,” Ewasko said. “It also gives the taxpayers of Manitoba that assurance — what are they getting from these trips that the ministers or the premier or the staff are (taking)?”

Until last week, out-of-province travel expenses for the premier and cabinet ministers were only listed until March 31, 2023. The PCs, who were in power until losing the October 2023 election, and the governing New Democrats accused each other of withholding the information.

Kinew said on Oct. 8 that he told “people” to post more recent expenses online and the records were posted soon afterward.

Housing Minister Bernadette Smith filed $2,468.33 in expenses, including $1,322.25 for airfare and $982.45 for hotel and meals, to go to a federal, provincial and territorial ministers meeting for MMIWG and LGBTTQ+ people in Ottawa from Feb. 6 to 9.

Economic Development Minister Jamie Moses went to the same mining conference Kinew went to in Toronto from March 3 to 6, and filed $4,080.36 in expenses, of which $1,497.24 was airfare and $2201.13 was hotel, meals and phone calls.

Transportation Minister Lisa Naylor went to the federal, provincial and territorial meeting for ministers responsible for emergency management in Ottawa, from Feb. 20 to 21, and filed expenses of $1,390.86 of which hotel and meals totalled $977.34. She then went to Montreal to attend the Council of Ministers from Feb. 22 to 23 and expensed $1,575.88, of which $977.34 was for the hotel stay and meals, $959.02 was airfare and $425.65 was in the unspecified “other” category.

— The Canadian Press, with Free Press files