The final tab for the October 18-20 event was almost $112,000, including travel,
hotels, musical entertainment and $2,250 in gifts for delegates.
Visitors included a six-person delegation from the Organization for Economic
Co-operation and Development secretariat in Paris, who joined Mr. Harper and
Canadian public servants to discuss how to manage major government cuts in
spending.
The so-called OECD Centres of Government meeting has rotated among various
member countries since 1993, and for the first time it was Canada’s turn. Wayne
Wouters, clerk of the Privy Council and Canada’s highest-ranking public servant,
was host.
Of the 45 people in attendance, 10 were from the Canadian government, the
remainder from the 33 other OECD countries or the secretariat. Mr. Harper
himself participated in a roundtable discussion.
Partly because budgeted hospitality costs exceeded the $5,000 threshold
imposed by government rules, Mr. Harper had to personally pre-approve the
expected bill as head of the Privy Council Office. The prime minister’s
signature was also necessary to OK the free alcohol.
“Every effort is being made to contain costs associated with this event,” Mr.
Wouters wrote to Mr. Harper on September 11, asking for his approval.
“As host, Canada is expected to provide a certain level of hospitality,
including a reception to welcome delegates on the evening of their arrival and
an official dinner.”
He added: “For reasons of courtesy and protocol, alcoholic beverages will be
offered at the welcome reception, the official dinner, and the two lunches.”
Mr. Wouters also noted that the budget for the reception “exceeds the maximum
cost per person” as set by Treasury Board policy, yet another reason Mr. Harper
had to sign off on the event.
The posh reception at the National Gallery of Canada cost $160 per person,
more than three times the approved Treasury Board maximum of $46.
Documents related to the event were obtained by The Canadian Press under the
Access to Information Act.
In the end, the final hospitality tab was trimmed to $16,000, said Raymond
Rivet, spokesman for the Privy Council Office. He said the bill for the entire
event was far lower than the initial budget of $300,000.
The OECD hospitality tab is among the highest for any minister since the
Tories first came to power in 2006.
Peter MacKay approved a $16,800 tab for Passport Canada staff in 2007, when
he was foreign minister.
And Mr. Harper approved one for Privy Council Office
staff in 2010 for $7,400. Neither included alcohol.
Such tabs are not proactively posted as normally required on government
websites because they are departmental, rather than personal, which makes
comparisons difficult. The big Harper and MacKay tabs were only revealed through
Access to Information Act requests.
The OECD event was held after the Harper government ordered dozens of federal
departments and agencies to submit detailed plans by October 3 to cut as much as 10
per cent of their budgets, for savings of up to $8-billion annually.
The meeting of OECD delegates included discussions about how member
governments should implement deficit-fighting cuts.
“Participants agreed that restructuring, a difficult and challenging process,
should be rapid, comprehensive and evidence-based, rather than piecemeal,” say
minutes of the meeting.
“The watchword for restructuring should be ‘transparency.’ ... Visible signs
of government openness and integrity are important to garner support for
difficult choices.”
The Tories’ current program review, led by Tony Clement, the Treasury Board
president, has been widely criticized for being conducted behind closed doors in
an information vacuum.
The planned cuts are expected to be revealed in the coming federal budget,
though a recent Treasury Board memo called on bureaucrats to leave details out
of key departmental reports this spring.
The Harper government is paying consultant Deloitte Inc. almost $90,000 a day
for advice on how to manage the cuts.
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