For George Radwanski, the privacy long granted to his spending practices came to a raucous end this month with the revelation his department - and Radwanski in particular - had pricey tastes and regular occasion to lavishly wine and dine consultants, counsel and clients.
To whit:
• a 5 day, $35,000 trip for two to Paris, presumably to seek les bréche privé in la cité d'amour
• more than $275,000 in travel in the current fiscal year alone
• $60,000 to install a new conference room his department would not have to share with the information commissioner's staff one floor below
• $256 for lunch at the Chateau Laurier (as a Liberal appointee, the Laurier looks much better on expense accounts than say, the Demaine Hotel restaurant on the shores of Lake Diefenbaker)
• some $17,000 in lunches and dinners together with his Director of Communications, Dona Vallieres (enough for nearly 5,100 Big Macs - that's a healthy appetite)
• nearly 5 days of layover in Hawaii on the way to and from a business trip to New Zealand to avoid suffering from jetlag (note to Radwanski: sleeping in for a few hours usually does the trick just fine and much more cheaply)
It ought to be shocking that a government official could be so cavalier with the public's money. Unfortunately, this kind of spending largesse is not shocking or even terribly surprising to most Canadians with access to a newspaper or television newscast. From helicopters to hotels, grants to gun registries, the federal government and many of its high placed employees have consistently demonstrated an uncanny ability to frivolously pay out from the public purse.
What may come as a shock to some is that Radwanski's profligate spending habits really broke no rules or even common practice.
The federal treasury department's own accounting practices do not require that Mr. Radwanski, Cabinet Ministers or government officials with rank equivalent to deputy minister submit receipts for expenses.
On the expense reports of those government officials, a line item for 'meals and entertainment' appears. Up until recent events in the privacy commissioner's office, the exact nature of those expenses has never come under public or even committee scrutiny because it did not need to.
There is something inherently distrustful about a system that permits public officials to spend money - particularly on taking themselves, their assistants and other people of their choosing out to dine - without ever having to fully account for the amount of the expenditure or its rationale.
