Hypocrisy takes flight

The CP reports that PMS is making plenty of use of citizen-funded Challenger jets for personal purposes without reimbursing anything close to the actual cost of the planes:

The Prime Minister's Office says it has reimbursed the public treasury $9,600 for Stephen Harper's use of government jets for two trips that were partisan business or private pleasure.

But considering past Conservative assertions that the executive jets cost $11,000 an hour to operate - and even using more modest cost projections for the Challengers supplied by the Defence Department - it appears taxpayers are heavily subsidizing the personal travel of Harper and his officials...

Harper used the executive jet to fly to Halifax on Feb. 10 to attend a provincial Progressive Conservative convention and retirement celebration for Nova Scotia premier John Hamm.

Buckler said Friday the Conservative party paid $6,630.90 for Harper and six officials, who she listed, to fly on the Challenger from Ottawa to Halifax and back.

Harper, his son Ben and five PMO officials also flew to Toronto from Ottawa for a Maple Leafs-Senators NHL game on Oct. 4. The Conservative party reimbursed $2,993.13 for that trip, said Buckler.

Of course, it would be nice to know exactly what difference in cost is being eaten by less-privileged Canadians to allow PMS to save travel time on his way to a hockey game - whether it's the $2200 per hour estimated by the Defence Department (which would still leave the Cons underpaying for the planes), or the $11,000 per hour cited by multiple Cons in Parliament and on the campaign trail. But in the Cons' usual spirit of accountability-for-everyone-but-themselves, the officials with the ability to disclose those numbers are under a gag order:

A Defence Department spokeswoman said Friday the fleet of six Challenger executive jets costs $12 million a year to maintain. Flying costs are pegged at $2,233 an hour, plus between $800 and $1,000 a day in duty costs for flight crews sitting on the tarmac, plus ramp charges which are typically around $50.

Asked to break down the numbers into the true cost of the prime minister's February junket to Halifax, Lt. Carole Brown came back empty-handed.

"The word came back from the powers that be," Brown told The Canadian Press. "We were shut down on this one."

In sum, the party which is supposedly for accountability and against waste is once again going out of its way to reverse those principles when it comes to the whims of PMS. And when voters who may have honestly believed the Cons' claims to those principles get a chance to respond, Harper may get to rediscover the joys of flying commercial instead.