Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Eight weeks ago today I wrote an e-mail to the Minister of Finance because of complaints I received from the public about Minister Ramsay’s most recent travel claim to a luxury hotel in Quebec and using a luxury car. In my e-mail I had asked a number of questions about the luxury rental vehicle, luxury hotel, government paying for Ministers going to weddings and many more questions along the lines of Minister’s signing off their own travel claims, but one of the concerns I raised was how long has this been going on. So I specifically asked the Minister of Finance to have an independent review of Minister Ramsay’s travel claims for the past year. I know this can happen because it does happen regularly. So I asked for an independent review because I think it falls well within the realms of the ability.
I often hear that government bean counters go months after travel claims have been filed and they audit them for clarification and confirmation of expenses. If an error has been processed in good faith, I’m prepared to accept that for what it is. Small administrative errors happen. We’re all human. It’s easy to tick a box off accidentally and sometimes even unknowingly. However, if an error is habitual, then we do have some problems. An example of that could be claiming dinners repeatedly as your per diems, but the conference or meetings all seem to provide them. That would be wrong.
I know this Minister has flown friends and family around and didn’t offer to pay for them at first, until I complained to the Comptroller General, who, once reviewed the situation, found my point correct and the Minister did pay the money back. What I find interesting is I sent the e-mail and it was received by the Finance Minister on Wednesday, August 12th, but it took him two days after my e-mail was sent to reply that Minister Ramsay has called for a review on his own self.
I’m not a conspiracy theorist, but when you look at Friday’s newspaper of that week when it hit the streets of Yellowknife and me making a statement saying this needs to be done, coincidence starts to add up. Two days to be able to call the reviewers on their own self starts to make you wonder. The Minister has justified his expenses in Monday’s paper, stood by them very strongly, but then all of a sudden, wait a minute, he changes his mind.
The fact remains that the reasonable request is outstanding. If a simple error has been made, I still stand by that point; accidents happen. But if it’s habitual, we need to be asking ourselves, how do we correct this?
I brought this point up again to the Minister of Finance when we were out at the Caucus retreat over a month ago, that he didn’t answer all my requests in the e-mail. The point is, this review is still outstanding and it’s reasonable to be done. Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker.
Member for Deh Cho, Mr. Nadli.
