Why is it those that who argue government should be run like a business think that means hopping on a jet whenever the mood strikes them?
So what do you suppose would happen if senior officers in a company consistently ran up $100,000-a-year travel bills without any cost-benefit analysis?
How would the board of directors react if these same senior officers, when asked to justify these excessive bills, responded: “I will make no apologies for my travel bill?”
How would this go over at a time when the company’s budget — only balanced once in the last six years — had gone from initial projections of a billion-dollar surplus to a billion-dollar deficit? (Of course, we are not sure because no one is addressing the consequences of recent additional $747 million in closed-door spending.)
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Would these senior officials still have their jobs if all this was happening at a time of labour strife in the company and while customer satisfaction had declined to the point where the company was just surpassed by its corporate rival?
Why is it those who argue government should be run like a business think that means hopping on a jet whenever the mood strikes them?
Such thoughts cross one’s mind after the latest NDP gripes about Premier Scott Moe’s recent trip to India … although there is irony in Saskatchewan New Democrats complaining about government travel.
Ministers in the last Saskatchewan NDP government had a penchant for questionable trips to France around the time of the World Cup or taking government executive air to Mexico for a grain elevator opening.
My, how they loved those Executive Air planes, grounded by former Sask. Party premier Brad Wall.
But, if anything, this just underscores the problem of long-in-the-tooth governments far too comfortable with the trappings of office and far too removed from the reality that the rest of us are actually footing the bill.
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Over time, those running government develop an ugly combination of self-importance and entitlement … which takes us to today’s notion that nothing beyond a rhetorical statement is needed to justify questionable travel.
“This is an important mission for Saskatchewan as we continue to build relationships with India,” said Moe in a recent news release. “We have built strong relationships over a number of decades which has been crucial to building opportunities and protecting communities and jobs back home …
“My job as premier is to ensure we maintain and expand those markets and protect the thousands of Saskatchewan jobs that rely on exports.”
Great. So, which jobs in peril were protected? What deals were signed or cemented that wouldn’t have happened as part of the $700 million worth of agri-food exports and $1.3 billion in trade that seems like it would have happened anyway? India wouldn’t have bought our potash and lentils anyway?
Sure, past premiers Grant Devine, Roy Romanow, Lorne Calvert and Wall went on trade missions, too. But this is well beyond those once-every-couple-of-years events.
Moe and Trade and Investment Minister Jeremy Harrison are jetting around the planet at a rate of $100,000 per year — all at a time when we also have a record number of trade offices at record costs to, presumably, alleviate travel.
We have a trade office in India where, as noted by NDP MLA Aleana Young last week, Moe and two other ministers have rang up $232,341.10 on seven trips to India since 2018.
In the latest annual travel costs available from this Sask. Party government, Moe spent $122,722 on trips from Oct. 1, 2022 to Sept. 30, 2023.
Harrison was not far behind Moe with $115,095 in trips in one year. Honourable mentions go to Energy Minister Jim Reiter, Agriculture Minister David Marit and Justice Minister Bronwyn Eyre who all did their part to ring up an annual out-of-province travel bill of more than half a million dollars.
But that’s just the beginning. This doesn’t include Moe’s recent trip tor COP28 in Dubai in December that staff say will cost an $35,000 for flights, accommodations, meals, transportation” but does not include the $700,000-plus cost for pavilion space.
It’s possible a lot of this travel to conferences and meetings was necessary. But was all this travel really needed without knowing the exact benefits?
Murray Mandryk is the political columnist for the Regina Leader-Post and the Saskatoon StarPhoenix.
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