Government reports show travel expenses are down significantly this year from 2022 and 2023, which the NDP said is typical in an election year.
Saskatchewan’s cabinet ministers have travelled outside the province less this year than in the previous two years, according to recently released travel expense reports.
Out-of-province ministerial travel expenditures were released on Wednesday, the same day the mid-year financial report was delivered by Finance Minister Jim Reiter, who revealed a $743.5-million projected deficit.
According to those reports, the government’s 2024 out-of-province travel expenses total $188,938 as of Sept. 30 — for various trips across Canada, to the U.S. and Europe. That figure is significantly lower than the previous two years.
Despite a lower tally this year, Saskatchewan NDP ethics critic Meara Conway says there is still evidence tucked inside expense forms of the Saskatchewan Party “continuing to fly high on the public’s dime.”
Citing a report for a trip to Toronto from June 11 to June 13, Conway claims Premier Scott Moe and three others spent two nights at a hotel that cost $818 per night to attend the U.S.-Canada Summit, for a total of $6,549.
Conway challenged the premier to make public the receipts from his trip to offer “transparency” on the expenditure.
But a spokesperson from government’s executive council said the hotel claim includes accommodations for three nights as the “delegation arrived after midnight on the night of (June 10),” and that the rooms cost $446 per night plus taxes.
Conway said that rate still equates to an expensive stay and challenged whether government is “trying to conceal a $545-per-night stay at the Ritz-Carlton?”
“There’s no excuse to gouge taxpayers for $800 hotel rooms, especially when you’re taxing people’s basics like gas and groceries at a time when they are telling you they just cannot make ends meet,” said Conway.
“We have politicians that think nothing of spending lavishly for these trips when there’s a questionable return on investment,” said Conway.
The Dubai trip was one of several overseas trade missions undertaken in 2023, including trips to India, France, U.K., Germany, Vietnam, Philippines and Mexico.
India was the most common destination in the last two years, with various cabinet ministers spending $126,627 on trade missions to the country across three separate trips. Saskatchewan opened a trade office in India in 2020, which was subsequently closed for some time and then reopened in 2024.
Harrison also spent $25,000 in Japan and South Korea, $17,800 in Poland and the U.K., $30,000 in Germany, and $38,000 in Philippines and Singapore in 2023. He has not travelled since a trip to Montreal in May for a meeting of immigration ministers.
Asked about the lower spending this year compared to 2023, Conway speculated that’s “often what you see right before an election.”
“I would love to hear that the government is reflecting and changing some of its patterns,” she said. “Many of these meetings are important, but there’s no excuse for spending over $800 a day for a hotel.”
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