REGINA – Saskatchewan finance minister spent about $ 8,000 on a private jet to attend a chamber of commerce lunch days after presenting a provincial budget containing tax hikes.
Minister Donna Harpauer’s travel expenses form, posted on the Saskatchewan Party government website, shows she took a chartered plane with Good Spirit Air Service on March 25, traveling 400 miles from Regina to North Battleford.
The flight cost $ 7,872.60.
A Harpauer spokesman said he was not available for an interview and made a statement.
“After limiting travel for the past two years due to the pandemic, the minister was able to visit several regions of the province,” James Parker said in an email.
“For many years, finance ministers have toured the province to discuss the budget. Visits are a great way to connect with people and provide more detailed information on how the provincial budget works for them and their community.”
The luncheon attended by Harpauer was hosted by the North Battleford Chamber of Commerce at Porta Bella Restaurant.
Two days earlier, he introduced the 2022-23 budget to the legislature, announcing a rise in property and smoking taxes and a six percent provincial sales tax on entertainment, gyms, concerts, museums and sporting events.
“This is a flight that could have been very easily replaced by a car trip,” said Carla Beck, leader of the opposition NPD.
“We see people making changes to their summer plans … because they can’t afford gas, and we see a minister with a flight spending enough that someone would do in four months.”
Beck said politicians need to lead by example, especially when they ask residents to cut back on a budget that increases the cost of people’s lives.
“If they don’t understand how difficult things are for people, and maybe they don’t, if they only see people from the sky on a $ 8,000 flight, they should go out and talk to people,” said Beck, who he noted that he has traveled thousands of miles by car in recent weeks to meet people from across the province.
Prime Minister Scott Moe, Education Minister Dustin Duncan and Rural Health Minister Everett Hindley also charted a private flight from Good Spirit Air Service from Regina to the north of the province on 10 January. The trip was for a funding announcement and to visit four communities.
This flight cost nearly $ 16,000, and each of the three cost $ 5,301.86. Moe, Duncan and Hindley were not available for comment.
“It is standard practice to share costs and coordinate charter flights, whenever possible, in order to reduce air travel costs,” government spokesman Mathew Glover said in a statement.
He said driving is the main mode of travel in the province of ministers, but charter flights are used periodically for longer distances or when it affects other commitments.
Since the government closed its air service, Executive Air, in 2017, it has spent between $ 200,000 and $ 400,000 a year for cabinet members to travel in and out of the province, Glover said.
He said this is much less than the $ 4 million spent on Executive Air in 2006-07 by the NDP government at the time.
Since March, the Saskatchewan NDP has asked the government to offer financial relief to residents as they face rising fuel costs, inflation and taxes.
The new Democrats have called on the government to temporarily stop collecting fuel tax in the province like Alberta and to raise gift rates to natural resource companies that make extraordinary profits.
Moe has said no decision has been made on this relief because the province has a deficit of nearly $ 500 million to pay.
He said if the budget is balanced ahead of schedule and there is a surplus of natural resource revenue, his government would look for ways to return dollars to residents in a way that benefits everyone.