[bootlegga]

Quote:

Prime minister personally approves $7,400 hospitality tab for "refreshments"

OTTAWA - Prime Minister Stephen Harper personally approved a $7,400 tab for "refreshments" for public servants about three months before his government announced a crackdown on hospitality expenses.

Harper's signature appears on an Aug. 26 approval form asking him to endorse the refreshment expense for a meeting of staff from the Privy Council Office, the prime minister's own department.

The so-called town hall meeting was held the morning of Sept. 13 at the posh Westin Hotel in downtown Ottawa, where a meeting room for the affair cost taxpayers about $5,000 an hour.

Town halls for Privy Council Office staff were inaugurated by the Conservatives in 2006 and have rapidly risen in cost over the years from $19,000 to $42,000, the bill for the latest gathering.

Documents outlining costs of the meeting were obtained by The Canadian Press under the Access to Information Act.

The Conservatives' 2009 federal budget imposed a two-year freeze on spending for travel, conferences and hospitality in all government departments, holding those expenses to 2008-2009 levels.

And last month, Treasury Board President Stockwell Day further tightened the restrictions, announcing tougher government-wide rules effective for 2011.

"Canadians have had to do a significant amount of belt tightening themselves as they've gone through these last couple of years, and they expect governments to do the same," Day said on Nov. 24 to justify the clamp-down.

Asked at a news conference to provide an example of improper hospitality spending, Day cited the example of federal government reception that cost $31,500 for several hundred people. "We're saying ... that's not a good signal to be sending."

An aide later explained that Day was referring to a May 9, 2005, reception hosted by Statistics Canada — during the term of the previous Liberal government — that cost taxpayers $31,674 for about 400 people.

The Statistics Canada event, in fact, was similar in scale to the $47,158 budgeted by the Privy Council Office for the Sept. 13 town hall, intended for some 600 public servants.

A spokesman for the Privy Council Office said the town hall came in under budget, at $42,077, partly because hospitality costs amounted to only $6,520 for "coffee, tea, bottled juice and pastries."

Raymond Rivet was not immediately able to say how many public servants attended the event. But if all 600 showed up for the three-and-a-half hour session, total costs were about $70 for each participant — not far off from the $79 for each person who attended the 2005 Statistics Canada event that Stockwell Day said was "not a good signal to be sending."

Rivet said the Privy Council Office town hall "provides a venue for interactive discussion on the priorities and challenges for the upcoming year."

Parliament was not sitting on Sept. 13, and large committee rooms in the Centre Block were available for government gatherings, as was the government's own downtown conference centre, in a refurbished railway station across from the Chateau Laurier Hotel.

Rivet said the conference centre "could not accommodate the estimated attendance of 600 employees in round table format."

"In choosing a facility, consideration is given to capacity, availability and cost. ... The Westin ... offered the most suitable venue at a competitive rate."

The prime minister did not attend the town hall, which was hosted by the clerk of the Privy Council, Wayne Wouters. The guest speaker was Steven Fletcher, the Conservative minister of state for democratic reform.

Harper was required to sign the Aug. 26 expense form because of Treasury Board policy, which requires a minister's approval for hospitality costs expected to be more than $5,000.

Rivet said the Privy Council Office has abided by the 2009 directive to hold travel, hospitality and conference expenses to 2008-2009 levels, despite the increased costs of the town hall meetings. Total PCO spending on all these items was $4,051,878 in 2008-2009, compared with $3,771,503 in 2009-2010, he said.

"PCO will continue to make spending decisions in line with the government's directive on the management of expenditures on travel, hospitality and conferences," he said.

The Westin Hotel in Ottawa is listed as one of PCO's sole-sourced companies for hospitality, in a Nov. 22 government response to a written question in the House of Commons from New Democrat MP Malcolm Allen.

Harper is not the first Conservative minister to sign a large hospitality bill for the benefit of public servants. Peter MacKay, then foreign minister, approved a $16,800 hospitality bill on March 2, 2007, to buy lunches for 400 Passport Canada employees doing weekend shifts.

Government policy normally requires ministers to publicly post their hospitality costs on departmental websites, but not when such costs are incurred for the benefit of the department, even though a minister may have personally approved the expense.

http://beta.ca.news.yahoo.com/prime-min ... y-tab.html

[BeaverFever]

Is anyone truly surprised? I'm not sure how much a catered day-long conference for 600 senior personnel should cost, but I imagine its pretty expensive whether you're a government or a businesses.

[ASLplease]

the adscam parties were more extravagant, no doubt about it.

[jeff744]

BeaverFever wrote:

Is anyone truly surprised? I'm not sure how much a catered day-long conference for 600 senior personnel should cost, but I imagine its pretty expensive whether you're a government or a businesses.

hmm....I just wrote a cheque for a conference that will last 5 days, I pay $297 ($60 a day) and it includes a room and food, the organizing group will walk away likely having made money. The government can cut costs by being willing to drop a single star rating, they are there for business, a posh hotel is not required for that, lower ranked hotels can do it for cheaper with little noticeable change in quality.

We don't pay taxes so the government can waste it on overpriced food and rooms.

[BeaverFever]

Yeah, but if you want government to behave more like business, and you want government to attract and retain competent, top-level executives with expertise and experience, you've got to be competitive with what the private sector offers these people or they will walk away.

BTW, your $60 x 600 personnel is $36,000...pretty comparable, no?

[jeff744]

BeaverFever wrote:

Yeah, but if you want government to behave more like business, and you want government to attract and retain competent, top-level executives with expertise and experience, you've got to be competitive with what the private sector offers these people or they will walk away.

BTW, your $60 x 600 personnel is $36,000...pretty comparable, no?

If they are coming because they can live in the lap of luxury they are in the job for the wrong reasons and nothing will ever get done. Did theirs also include a room, breakfast, dinner, supper, and a room for the organizing group?

[ASLplease]

I know that a $7500 bill for 600 people at a wedding would be extremely salad bar and potato chips.

[BeaverFever]

Well, it says it was a town-hall meeting, so I imagine there were one or more large rooms. Does your venue have a 600-person round-table? It also just noticed that it appears to have been a half-day event at $70 a head, so its fair to say the price was perhaps not so comparable to your experience. But again, its a conference for senior personnel belonging to the government's innermost central agency.

These people may not take the job because they are looking to live "in the lap of luxury". In fact, they still probably receive far less pay and fewer perks than a similar job in the private sector. But there is only so much discrepancy that you can have and they will not come. Nobody is going to go from First Class airfare and 5-star hotels in a private sector job to a government job riding a Greyhound Bus and the Motel 6. You can maybe get them down to business class and pastries-only meeting at the Ottawa Westin, but they're still human and compensation and other 'perks' are still a factor in attraction and retention of personnel. Probably still cost less than my company's Christmas party at the Royal York last year, and that was open to all staff, not just senior personnel.

[Curtman]

Quote:

Town halls for Privy Council Office staff were inaugurated by the Conservatives in 2006 and have rapidly risen in cost over the years from $19,000 to $42,000, the bill for the latest gathering.

Costs of language training for federal bureaucrats spike

Quote:

Language-training expenses have jumped nearly five-fold at the Treasury Board Secretariat in the last five years, from $428,490 to $2.1 million

PMO breaking the bank for 'propaganda,' opposition charges

Quote:

Documents also show a substantial rise in total costs for the Conservative cabinet. In 2009-10, the ministers' office expenses reached $67.6 million — compared to $59.3 million the previous year and $58.1 million in 2007-08.

Prime Minister’s Office spending to jump more than $1-million

Quote:

The cost of running the Prime Minister’s Office will jump by more than $1-million this year, mostly because of communications expenses.

When is the cost cutting they promised us going to start?

[Bruce_the_vii]

The right wing wants cuts to government spending. When you have a recession and a deficit you have to cut. So actually now, budget 2011, is the time to see what the Harper government will cut. The recession offers them the opportunity to cut. Cuts gore someone and are as popular as mud. Lets see what Harper has to say with budget 2011.

[ASLplease]

How well is Iggy doing at cutting his party's spending, the last i heard the liberal party was facing receivership.

[desertdude]

I think 7400 for a meeting of is the cost cutting. Friends have thrown wedding recptions for about a 100 people here with a 2 dish menus in 3/4 star hotels for more.

I don't see what the uproar is about, unless just because your against someone and nit pick on everything they do for no other reason than for the sake of just doing it.

[Regina]

I don't get the big deal either. They had a meeting and fed the people which is normal practice for any organization. Would also fall within their per diem allowance too. I have meetings in downtown Toronto starting with a dinner meeting tomorrow night and then all day Thursday, fly back home that night. Cost of the meetings always falls on the organizer's budget. Having the organized meals keeps everyone together and on time with less distractions.

[bootlegga]

It is no big deal IMHO - but I find it galling that partisan politicians use it to attack their opposition when they themselves do the exact same thing.

Quote:

An aide later explained that Day was referring to a May 9, 2005, reception hosted by Statistics Canada — during the term of the previous Liberal government — that cost taxpayers $31,674 for about 400 people.

The Statistics Canada event, in fact, was similar in scale to the $47,158 budgeted by the Privy Council Office for the Sept. 13 town hall, intended for some 600 public servants.

A spokesman for the Privy Council Office said the town hall came in under budget, at $42,077, partly because hospitality costs amounted to only $6,520 for "coffee, tea, bottled juice and pastries."

Raymond Rivet was not immediately able to say how many public servants attended the event. But if all 600 showed up for the three-and-a-half hour session, total costs were about $70 for each participant — not far off from the $79 for each person who attended the 2005 Statistics Canada event that Stockwell Day said was "not a good signal to be sending."

[andyt]

What a bullshit article. "refreshments" so called town-hall - all innuendo with no meat. If Harper had approved a bill for $740,000, that'd be a different thing.