PMO's "New Math" in Paying for Partisan Challenger Flight Time

[The Bread Guy]

Torn between posting this here and on an air force forum - mods, feel free to flip if necessary.

Shared in accordance with the "fair dealing" provisions, Section 29, of the Copyright Act.

Harper pays peanuts for personal use of government jets
BRUCE CHEADLE, Canadian Press, 28 Feb 07
Article Link

Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his Conservatives are paying just a small fraction of the cost of partisan and personal junkets aboard the military's fleet of Challenger executive jets.

And documents show that the Prime Ministers' Office changed the formula for calculating flight costs after Harper's first partisan journey - a move that slashed subsequent Conservative party repayments.

Neither the original formula nor the reduced charges came anywhere close to what Harper himself in Opposition had called "$11,000 per hour Challenger jet flights" by the previous Liberal government.

The invoices, obtained by The Canadian Press under the Access to Information Act, show a total of three Challenger flights by Harper in 2006 for which the military billed the Prime Minister's Office.

The first flight was Feb. 10, 2006, shortly after the minority Conservatives won power. Harper's return trip to Halifax from Ottawa for the retirement party of Nova Scotia premier John Hamm was deemed a partisan exercise, and the Conservative party paid the freight.

The invoice from National Defence, which lists Harper and six staff on board, calculated the trip cost "3.1 flying hours X $2,139.00/hour."

The total bill: $6,630.90.

On July 26, Harper and a contingent of six staff flew from Ottawa to Moncton, N.B., for a Conservative party event. That time, however, the party reimbursed National Defence less than half the cost of the first flight for roughly the same flying time.

The price was dictated by the PMO in an e-mail to National Defence:

"Following up on our telephone conversation, it is the wish of the Prime Minister's Office that the Conservative Party of Canada compensates the Crown for the use of the Challenger on July 26," wrote a PMO official on Aug. 10.

"Our travel agent . . . has advised us what the airfare would have been had the prime minister and his staff flown on commercial scheduled flights to Moncton, N.B. Return airfare would have been $483.72."

The e-mail lists the staff onboard and calculates the total owing as $3,144.18.

Commercial airfares were also used to calculate Challenger costs when Harper, his son, Ben, and five staff flew to Toronto on Oct. 4 for a Toronto Maple Leafs game.

Sandra Buckler, Harper's director of communications, said the commercial rate was decided upon after discussions with various government departments and the private sector.

"There was no previous protocol, as the former Liberal government never reimbursed Canadian taxpayers when they used the Challenger for non-government business," she said in an e-mail.

"Aside from the first instance, Canada's new government has been consistent in its protocol for reimbursing the cost of an economy return trip ticket. We believe this is a fair balance, given the fact that the prime minister, for security purposes, must travel privately."

Liberals who bore the brunt of the former Tory mantra of $11,000-per-hour flights were not impressed.

"They're trying to say they're whiter than white," fumed Liberal MP Denis Coderre. "But it's worse, because they're playing with the numbers."

Curiously, a flight by Harper to Charlottetown, P.E.I., and Moncton on April 28-29 for a provincial Conservative party fundraiser was not reimbursed as a partisan excursion.

Buckler said that trip included a "roundtable meeting with Block Parents" and was therefore considered government business.

That kind of fluid partisan-government mix was a frequent target of Conservative complaints when Liberal prime minister Paul Martin was in power.

The Liberal party did not reimburse the federal treasury for any of the flights. But Martin personally did pay for his family's vacation to Morocco aboard the Challenger in December 2004, basing repayment on commercial airfare costs and then almost doubling the figure.

Prime ministers are required by security to fly only non-commercial, and filling the extra seats with staff makes economic sense.

However, the subject is sensitive for Conservatives because they made so much noise about Challenger flights during previous Liberal governments.

Harper himself and at least half a dozen members of his cabinet, not to mention numerous backbenchers, repeatedly hammered the Liberals for what they called "flying limousines" that they alleged cost taxpayers $11,000 an hour to operate.

"As they pad their expense accounts and look out the windows of their $11,000 per hour Challenger jet flights to B.C., they think everything is going pretty well," Harper said of the Grits in a speech in Vancouver on Oct. 12, 2005.

Harper had also accused Martin of flying "around the country on a government jet at taxpayers' expense" while dropping "enough money to cover up the stench of corruption."

Now, having been elected to office on a platform of transparency and accountability, the Conservatives are finding that accounting for Challenger flights is more challenging than they imagined.

Linking Challenger reimbursements to the actual cost of operating the jet is extremely difficult.

The military's 2005-06 Cost Factors Manual for aircraft, also obtained under the Access to Information Act, lists the full cost of operating the administrative Challenger used by the prime minister as $9,124 per hour.

A utility version of the same jet, used by the military, costs $11,541 an hour to operate.

Given that most of these are fixed costs that accrue whether the jet is flying or not, establishing a billable hourly flight rate is problematic.

 

[Edward Campbell]

...

Given that most of these are fixed costs that accrue whether the jet is flying or not, establishing a billable hourly flight rate is problematic.

And therein lies the problem.  It is only right and proper that DND is reimbursed for the additional costs of flying the machine but is it fair that the party in power pay 'fixed' costs for which a budget already exists?  Isn't that charging twice for the same thing?  We need a clear, simple and sensible - to us ordinary Canadains - rule which will be applied firmly and consistently. 

 

[The Bread Guy]

And therein lies the problem.  It is only right and proper that DND is reimbursed for the additional costs of flying the machine but is it fair that the party in power pay 'fixed' costs for which a budget already exists?  Isn't that charging twice for the same thing?  We need a clear, simple and sensible - to us ordinary Canadians - rule which will be applied firmly and consistently. 

True enough, but should this principle apply to "party political" transportation?  Is taxpayer money already going into the fixed costs there to transport ruling party members for political functions, or for transport MP's on "doing things for Canadians" government business? 

In principle, I believe in the party pay the full tab for political trips, and PMO paying incremental costs for "government business."

That said, I realize this "political-government" thing is not a dichotomy, but more of a continuum.  How "political" does a trip have to be for the party to pay?  What about a trip with political events mixed with government business?

I guess this is part of the complexity.....

 

[GAP]

Where does the security aspect come in? Everywhere the PM goes he is accompanied by his security detail. He can't just hop on an excursion West Jet flight....

 

[Fishbone Jones]

Everyone wants the Conservatives to pay, but didn't make a peep when the Libranos were doling out OUR cash on their cross country junkets, that weren't payed for. Just more partisan bullshit from those sad sacks in Opposition that think they have some sort of god given destiny to run over the rest of the country and treat us like subserviant serfs. Just like the anti terrorist bill. It was good enough for them to design it and vote it in, but not good enough to protect Canadians now that they're not in power. They don't care what's good for the country and the people, they only care about regaining power and robbing us blind again.

 

[The Bread Guy]

Everyone wants the Conservatives to pay, but didn't make a peep when the Libranos were doling out OUR cash on their cross country junkets, that weren't payed for. Just more partisan bullshit from those sad sacks in Opposition that think they have some sort of god given destiny to run over the rest of the country and treat us like subserviant serfs. Just like the anti terrorist bill. It was good enough for them to design it and vote it in, but not good enough to protect Canadians now that they're not in power. They don't care what's good for the country and the people, they only care about regaining power and robbing us blind again.

Bang on!  For me, it doesn't matter which party's in power - political machine pays full cost for political trips, PMO or appropriate department pays incremental cost for gov't business. 

An interesting thought experiment:  if the NDP ever DID get into power, would they forego the goodies, or stick to their ideological roots?

Where does the security aspect come in? Everywhere the PM goes he is accompanied by his security detail. He can't just hop on an excursion West Jet flight....

True, but charters are an option, too - Someone would say, "You can't use the Challenger at $11K per flight hour, but you can charter your own jet at $xxxx an hour."

 

[Edward Campbell]

I believe it is true that the RCMP will not allow the PM to fly commercial – security.

I know that ministers can be put into some horrendously tight scheduling boxes by the demands of both portfolio and political constituents.  Sometimes it is impossible for ministers to be at the events where their public/portfolio and political party duties without using private jets  – and getting re-elected/getting the party re-elected is a legitimate duty of ministers.

There are Canadian charter companies, e.g. Execaire (a subsidiary of defence contractor Innotech) which could provide similar services.  Perhaps, if security is an insurmountable obstacle, current charter rates could be used for reimbursement.

We taxpayers already pay for a huge slice of political parties’ expenses.  Executive jet flights are, relatively, a drop in the bucket but I guess Canadians choke on the idea of politicians flying around, à la Hollywood rock stars, in private jets.  It says more about our provincial attitudes than anything else.

 

[observor 69]

[obstacle, current charter rates could be used for reimbursement.

We taxpayers already pay for a huge slice of political parties’ expenses.  Executive jet flights are, relatively, a drop in the bucket but I guess Canadians choke on the idea of politicians flying around, à la Hollywood rock stars, in private jets.  It says more about our provincial attitudes than anything else.

 

[Fishbone Jones]

An interesting thought experiment:  if the NDP ever DID get into power, would they forego the goodies, or stick to their ideological roots?

Ideological roots? Jack Layton and his wife Cynthia Chow lived in subsidised housing while both were elected officials living in Toronto.

 

[observor 69]

Ideological roots? Jack Layton and his wife Cynthia Chow lived in subsidised housing while both were elected officials living in Toronto.

"Layton and Chow were also the subject of some dispute when a June 14, 1990 Toronto Star article by Tom Kerr accused them of unfairly living in a housing cooperative subsidized by the federal government, despite their high income.[2] Layton and Chow had both lived in the Hazelburn Co-op since 1985, and lived together in an $800 per month three-bedroom apartment after their marriage in 1988. By 1990, their combined annual income was $120,000, and in March of that year they began voluntarily paying an additional $325 per month to offset their share of the co-op's Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation subsidy, the only members of the co-op to do so. Average Toronto market rent in 1989 was $782 per month, although the Vancouver Province newspaper claimed a comparable dwelling would have been worth $1,500.

In response to the article, the co-op's board argued that having mixed-income tenants was crucial to the success of co-ops, and that the laws deliberately set aside apartments for those willing to pay market rates, such as Layton and Chow.[3] During the late 1980s and early 1990s they maintained approximately 30% of their units as low income units and provided the rest at what they considered market rent. In June 1990, the city's solicitor cleared the couple of any wrong-doing, and later that month, Layton and Chow left the co-op and bought a house in Toronto's Chinatown together with Chow's mother, a move they said had been planned for some time. Former Toronto mayor John Sewell later wrote in NOW Magazine that rival Toronto city councillor Tom Jakobek had given the story to Tom Kerr."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jack_Layton#Early_life