# Feds spent over $620,000 in booze in last four years



## Navalsnpr (10 Feb 2011)

Feds spent over $620,000 in booze in last four years

http://www.ottawasun.com/news/canada/2011/02/09/17216601.html

OTTAWA — Taxpayers footed the bill for more than $620,000 in booze over the past four years, newly released federal documents show.

But 27 departments and agencies — including the RCMP and the Treasury Board Secretariat, the central agency that sets the rules for expensing liquor in the public service — could not account for any of their spending on alcoholic drinks since 2006.

Of those that did, the Department of National Defence spent the most money, a whopping $495,532, on alcohol.

Three departments, including the Prime Minister’s bureaucracy, the Privy Council Office, provided incomplete data.

Canada’s spy service, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, refused to say what it spent on alcohol, citing national security.

Of the 33 bureaucracies who provided at least partial answers, government figures show they spent $625,252.22 on liquor since 2006-2007.

Nearly half of the money, $271,945, was personally approved by various ministers of national defence.

The Canada School of Public Service, the place bureaucrats go to learn how to become better managers, spent the second-most money on liquor, $22,822.

The Canada Revenue Agency rounded out the top three, spending $16,275.15 on booze.

Twenty-one offices, mostly small government agencies with a handful of staff, reported spending no money on liquor.

Liberal MP Siobhan Coady told QMI Agency the Harper government portrays itself as a sound fiscal manager, but facts suggest otherwise.

“Since coming into power they have spent $600,000 purchasing alcohol -- that’s what we know about,” she said.

“There are very few controls over these types of expenditures in government. If they are not looking after the small stuff, what are they doing on the big stuff?”

Coady was troubled that in many cases — at DND, Public Works, the Economic Development Agency of Quebec, the Canadian International Development Agency, the Communications Security Establishment Canada and Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency — liquor was expensed without proper oversight.

Documents suggest mid-level bureaucrats inappropriately signed off on the purchase of beer and wine for hospitality events.

“The former policy was not explicit about alcohol,” Treasury Board spokesman Robert Makichuk said, explaining why the hospitality policy was subject to different interpretations.

Still, Makuchuk said, alcohol was generally understood to require the prior approval of the minister or deputy head.

Staff in the minister of national defence’s office approved $2,223 on booze although the rules, written and unwritten, suggest no one had that authority.

In fact, $104,736 in liquor spending at the defence department was spent without the approval of the minister or someone at the deputy minister level.

DND spokesman Jason Broadbent was unable to explain Wednesday why the department had spent so much or who had approved it.

Treasury Board President Stockwell Day announced last fall that the feds would introduce new directives on hospitality restricting alcohol spending to situations in which it was strictly necessary for protocol or courtesy reasons. They came into place this January.

althia.raj@sunmedia.ca


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## Dissident (10 Feb 2011)

The spending doesn't bother me at all. (I am sure most of the alcohol money for DND is for beer calls in Afghanistan).

What does bother is when a department can not account for its spending, alcohol or otherwise.


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## The Bread Guy (10 Feb 2011)

Dissident said:
			
		

> What does bother is when a department can not account for its spending, alcohol or otherwise.


Especially (and ironically) Treasury Board.


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## aesop081 (10 Feb 2011)

Navalsnipr said:
			
		

> *Liberal * MP Siobhan Coady told QMI Agency



Blah blah blah...........Adscam.


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## Fishbone Jones (10 Feb 2011)

Of course we have yet to hear how much the Libs spent, on the same, while in office.


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## Armymedic (10 Feb 2011)

> Liberal MP Siobhan Coady told QMI Agency the Harper government portrays itself as a sound fiscal manager, but facts suggest otherwise.
> 
> “Since coming into power they have spent $600,000 purchasing alcohol -- that’s what we know about,” she said



No, Honorable Siobhan Coady,  not the "that's what we know about" line....

Its like you are trying to say that Steven Harper's Government has a secret agenda to spend millions on BOOZE.

Whats next, drunken soldiers, with guns, on our streets, in Canada?


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## NSDreamer (11 Feb 2011)

Navalsnipr said:
			
		

> Feds spent over $620,000 in booze in last four years
> 
> Canada’s spy service, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, refused to say what it spent on alcohol, citing national security.



  ;D


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## ModlrMike (11 Feb 2011)

Quick mental math on 2 beer per day per man (I know... perhaps)

2 beer x 365 days x 2500 troops x 7 years = 12,775,000 beer. Now divide the 620k by the number of potential beer and you get about 0.05, or 5 cents per beer. If the best deal we got was 60c per beer, then the number of potential beer is: 7,665,000. Now we reverse the equation to get the beer per man amount of 0.6 beer per day per man, or 1/3 ration.

I doubt this bears any resemblance to the truth, though.

Yes, I have too much time on my hands.


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## Shamrock (11 Feb 2011)

Rider Pride said:
			
		

> No, Honorable Siobhan Coady,  not the "that's what we know about" line....
> 
> Its like you are trying to say that Steven Harper's Government has a secret agenda to spend millions on BOOZE.
> 
> Whats next, drunken soldiers, with guns, on our streets, in Canada?



I suspect she is hinting at a lack of fiscal transparency through a theme also identifiable as fiscally irresponsible.


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## ModlrMike (11 Feb 2011)

ʞɔoɹɯɐɥs said:
			
		

> I suspect she is hinting at a lack of fiscal transparency through a theme also identifiable as fiscally irresponsible.



Hello pot, this is kettle, over.


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## Oldgateboatdriver (11 Feb 2011)

I wonder what this prudish institution (the Ottawa Citizen, I mean - though you can include certain members of Parliament) would think if they ever tabulated how much money our European military brethren spend on "booze".

Their navies carry beer and wine in the stainless steel tanks instead of water and they are piped straight to the dining messes and made available on tap. They drink this instead of water - at the state's expense. Last I was on a French minehunter, we were given a pint of beer or large wine glass with every meal (save breakfast - at least for me  ) without even asking for it.

And I would not be surprised if a good portion of DND's booze account came from the Navy. First of all, I do not think Canadians would think badly of any Captain that authorised a beer per person to celebrate when you are out on patrol on say, Christmas or New Year's day or Canada Day. Second of all, except in ports such as those in  Dubai, Saudi Arabia and the like, we are usually expected to officially entertain onboard as a diplomatic function of the Navy when on official visits to foreign port. The people we "entertain" and who expect booze on Canadian ships are usually made up mostly of ... politicians!  

Now, a quick calculation here on the DND part of this expenditure means that DND has spent about one dollar per year for each uniformed member of the CF (Reg and Res combined): My god, we must all have gotten dead drunk on that much booze!

Personally, I am getting sick of the North American politician's official prudishness where our freedom means that all sorts of fully accepted "temptations" are available to individual without troubling the populace, while in public, no politician can be seen to accept or endorse any of them, lest they offend. Those politicians make Victorian Temperance League ladies look like debauched suffragettes.

Rant off!


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## OldSolduer (11 Feb 2011)

I was always under the assumption that then "free issue" was from Non Public Funds, not from the taxpayer.

With the clamp down on hospitality, I recently attended a conference in Winnipeg in which we couldn't even get coffee due to these stupid regulations.


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## The Bread Guy (11 Feb 2011)

Jim Seggie said:
			
		

> With the clamp down on hospitality, I recently attended a conference in Winnipeg in which we couldn't even get coffee due to these stupid regulations.


When some federal gov't departments host face-to-face meetings (think 8-12 participants total), they have to get 3 quotes for sandwiches, juice and coffee before being allowed to spend hospitality money.

I sense from the coverage that the booze in question shows up when high-end politicians and/or officials host meetings and include booze, not the booze served in messes.  

As for the more enlightened view some European forces display re:  alcohol and the "x beer per man/woman/day", I think this would be more comparable to our messes than the "hosting meetings with booze" situation.


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## dapaterson (11 Feb 2011)

Jim is correct; free issues are generally NPF.

I'm also suspicious that this may be overstating the costs.  If an event is to be held where alcohol will be served at public expense, the hospitality request details all direct and indirect costs - so if, for example, the CDS were to host a meeting with the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, where each gentleman were to receive two glasses of wine, the request would indicate the cost of the meal, the cost of the wine, and the DND overhead cost (it's been some time since I've been directly involved with such requests, so the memory of those calculations is hazy).

Depending on what numbers are being reported (and what numbers were requested) the DND amount may include all the food that was served alongside the alcohol.


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## Staff Weenie (11 Feb 2011)

Even for visiting dignitaries it is very difficult to get this sort of thing approved.  The intense scrutiny I went through, right up to the MND's Office, to get just $1,800 in Hospitality for a conference was stunning. The conference had about 700 people, loads of planning and effort, and the hardest part of all was buying one lunch and a framed photograph for several visiting Generals and high profile speakers. Getting alcohol would have been near impossible.


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## Gunner98 (11 Feb 2011)

Jim Seggie said:
			
		

> I was always under the assumption that then "free issue" was from Non Public Funds, not from the taxpayer.
> 
> With the clamp down on hospitality, I recently attended a conference in Winnipeg in which we couldn't even get coffee due to these stupid regulations.



It is and should be difficult to use hospitality funds for people who are already on TD with meal allowance and incidentals. 

NPF for beer issue in KAF on Canada Day - had to sign for it so that PSP would report it.


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## old medic (11 Feb 2011)

Rider Pride said:
			
		

> Whats next, drunken soldiers, with guns, on our streets, in Canada?



Liberals invent their own gender-neutral, secular, inoffensive-to-anyone national anthem
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2011/02/10/liberals-invent-their-own-gender-neutral-secular-inoffensive-to-anyone-national-anthem/#more-28029

Liberal MPs promote ‘reasonably coherent’ atheist, gender-neutral national anthem
http://www.lifesitenews.com/news/liberal-mps-promote-reasonably-coherent-atheist-gender-neutral-national-ant/


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## OldSolduer (11 Feb 2011)

Simian Turner said:
			
		

> It is and should be difficult to use hospitality funds for people who are already on TD with meal allowance and incidentals.
> 
> NPF for beer issue in KAF on Canada Day - had to sign for it so that PSP would report it.



I agree with your reasoning, however, when a full Colonel can't be trusted to use his own good judgement...there is something rotten in the state of Denmark.


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## Armymedic (11 Feb 2011)

But he is just a full Colonel, and not a ADM.


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## Gunner98 (13 Feb 2011)

Jim Seggie said:
			
		

> I agree with your reasoning, however, when a full Colonel can't be trusted to use his own good judgement...there is something rotten in the state of Denmark.



IIRC, it was a MGen that spoiled it for everyone, so no Cols can't be trusted either.

http://www2.parl.gc.ca/HousePublications/Publication.aspx?pub=Hansard&doc=41&Language=E&Mode=1&Parl=35&Ses=2#2438


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