Governor General Mary Simon gives her address after she took the oath to become the 30th Governor General of Canada in Ottawa on July 26, 2021. (Photo by SEAN KILPATRICK/POOL/AFP via Getty Images)
Gov. Gen. Mary Simon and her delegation to the Middle East spent $1.3 million on hotels, flights, catering, and other travel expenses during the week-long trip in March, according to documents tabled with a House of Commons committee.
The delegation also consisted of Global Affairs Canada (GAC) employees, National Defence Department (DND) officials, and RCMP officers.
Invoices tabled with the House government operations and estimates committee showed that Simon’s office spent around $160,000 on the trip and the RCMP spent around $155,000, while National Defence spent over $470,000 and GAC spent close to $520,000.
“What value are taxpayers getting for this $1.3-million trip to the Middle East,” said Franco Terrazzano, federal director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF), in a Nov. 2 release.
“Can the governor general prove that spending $1.3 million to go to Expo 2020 in Dubai was a better use of taxpayers’ money than hiring more nurses or helping struggling taxpayers?”
MPs on the government operations committee asked on Sept. 23 for additional details about the Governor General’s in-flight catering fees during the trip, which amounted to about $218 per meal for each person present.
“We’d like to know whether we were dealing with caviar and expensive champagne, or what kind of meals are we talking about here,” said Conservative MP Pierre Paul-Hus, who demanded the committee be provided with detailed receipts describing the catering costs.
The committee is yet to post the in-flight catering receipts, but CTF posted copies it received from National Defence showing that one of the flight’s catering services on March 22 cost over £3,800, which amounts to over $5,800 Canadian dollars.
The CTF said other in-flight expenses included $230 for “flower arrangements” and $984 for “individual Flow water boxes.”
‘Quite High’
GAC’s invoices from the trip, posted by the government operations committee, showed that hotel fees in Dubai alone amounted to well over $90,000. The fees included a hotel block-room booking and a multi-function room reservation.
Room service charges totaled over $7,500.
“We go to areas where the cost of living is quite high in comparison to Canada and therefore the prices are much higher than we would see potentially here in Canada,” RCAF Commander, Lieutenant-General Eric Kenny, told the government operations committee on Sept. 22 in explaining the trip expenses.
The Epoch Times reached out to both the Governor General’s office and GAC for details and receipts of the hotel bookings but didn’t receive a response by publication time.
Other GAC expenses during the Middle East trip included several car rental fees in Kuwait, Qatar, and the Gulf States. One vehicle rental charge expense in Kuwait totaled over $17,000 and another in Doha, Qatar, cost over $24,000.
According to invoices, the Governor General’s office also had to pay for two employees to fly back to Ottawa from Doha during the trip because of “Covid-19 Quarantine requirements.”
Their flights cost over $17,500 combined.
“I just want to avoid this situation occurring again in the future,” Bloc Québécois MP Julie Vignola said during an Oct. 6 government operations committee meeting.
“This is taxpayers’ money, and our taxpayers have trouble making ends meet.”
David Wagner contributed to this report.
