Recently the BC legislature made public a list of how much we got to spend for MLAs flying people hither-and-yon under Accompanying Person Travel Expenses.
This practice goes back to practically day one - when modes of transportation and long-distance communication were still limited - and those running BC needed someone from home to warm their feet in Victoria. Singles may have been left out in the cold with this one but who knows. So they allowed themselves 12 trips per year - at taxpayers' expense - and seeing that they didn't (and don't!) sit 12 months: this may have meant warm feet just about all the time.
Somewhere along the line this toing-and-froing began to allow for aides as well, whose presence MLAs just couldn't do without at all like.
And today this page still is a most important one in Victoria's very silverlined playbook: MLAs are allowed to fly an accompanying person 12 times a year.
And that is the list now made public. No choice - otherwise it wouldn't have happened.
Covering BC's 85 MLAs - between 1 Apr, 2013 and 31 Dec, 2013 - $125.310 were spent on 233 trips. Not part of this are $55.922 Speaker Linda Reid approved separately, without breaking them down on the list. Because she didn't have to. And we don't know how the big money breaks down between spouses' warm feet and aides' warm hands. Because we don't need to know.
14 MLAs - for unexplained reasons - didn't partake in the feeding at the public trough.
Michelle & Zak Mungall
Topping the list of 71 MLAs - in terms of money spent on flights - is:
Michelle Mungall, NDP (Nelson - Creston)
with 8 trips - within 9 months - at $7.806.
Her explanation - on CBC Radio, 28 Mar, 2014: sometimes an aide accompanies her to Victoria for training. She didn't refer to the hubby.
Seeing that Mungall has been in this job for quite some time now - one wonders how much more training her local minions still need there. In person - what with the Internet and surely everything Victoria and leg.bc.ca on it.
Mind you - my letter left at Mungall's headquarters during her last election-campaign was never acknowledged; neither were two e-mails I sent to her official Victoria address later.
So there may be a training-deficit, indeed. Unless it's just carelessness or not caring.
Enough already I said to myself: cancelling my subscription to her newsletter. No enquiry why from her end. And a message sent separately - briefly explaining my reasons - didn't prompt a reply either.
Something to drink? Peanuts?
Michelle & Zak Mungall - selkirk.ca
No comments:
Post a Comment