Finance critics believe newly-released receipts of the premier’s travels to Europe over the summer are shedding more light on how taxpayer money was spent during the trip.
Although the province released the price tag for the trip Premier Alison Redford and other MLAs took to the Olympics, totaling more than $500,000 – it appears a number of receipts were left out.
They’re documents the Canadian Taxpayers Federation requested from the government months ago.
“They’ve thrown up as many road blocks as possible, so we can found out what they have already spent,” Derek Fildebrandt with the Canadian Taxpayers Federation said.
In the receipts are expenses for $12,551.51 for flights, $1,860.00 for hotels and £3629.19 ($5773.68 CAD) for a car service – totaling more than $23,000. Meal receipts were not included in the documents.
“We don’t want to put on our tinfoil hats and accuse the government of a cover up, but we do know they have blocked us at every turn, so when the premier files all these expenses for flights, for hotels but doesn’t file anything for food,” Fildebrandt said.
Critics say, even without food added to the tab, the government is abusing tax dollars.
“We get this all the time, when we get stonewalled on information we need to know about the government,” NDP MLA David Eggen said. “So they say they are transparent up to here, and then it becomes pitch black.”
However, the Deputy Premier said each government minister is set to show all of their expenses to Albertans in the coming weeks.
“Every minister, in December, will be releasing all of their expenses and it will be retroactive,” Deputy Premier Thomas Lukaszuk said. “If there are any allegations that some receipts may have been issued, everything will be on the table.”
Those expenses are expected to be posted online – CTV News has learned the expenses are to date back to the last provincial election.
With files from Kevin Armstrong
