FEATURED HEADLINE
The British Columbia government is handing out nearly three hundred seventy thousand dollars every year so roughly thirty-six of its highest-paid bureaucrats can either drive leased vehicles costing up to twelve hundred dollars a month or simply pocket one thousand dollars a month in cash, and the public is not even allowed to know what cars are being paid for. Shannon Salter, the Deputy Minister to the Premier and Head of the entire Public Service, collected eleven thousand one hundred thirty-one dollars in vehicle and transportation allowance. Heather Wood, Deputy Minister of Transportation and Transit, took twelve thousand eight dollars. Douglas S. Scott, Deputy Minister and Secretary to Treasury Board in the Ministry of Finance, took another twelve thousand eight dollars. Stephen Brown, while serving as Deputy Minister of Health, received seven thousand two hundred sixty-nine dollars. James Rutkowski, Chief of Staff in the Premier’s Office, claimed twelve thousand six dollars. These are the only names the government has been forced to attach to specific dollar amounts. The rest of the thirty-six senior officials are also collecting either the leased cars or the cash, but their individual names and exact breakdowns remain hidden behind the same secrecy that blacked out every make, model and year of the actual vehicles.
The cash option is available even to those who work from home and have no operational need for a car, so taxpayers are simply writing cheques for people who never have to leave the house. The average lease that was taken cost about one thousand one hundred three dollars a month, well above ordinary hybrid sedans and deep into luxury territory, yet the government still refuses to say whether any of these officials are driving Range Rovers, Mercedes or something even more expensive. When the Canadian Taxpayers Federation forced the numbers into the open, the government responded by redacting the vehicle details on the absurd pretext of law enforcement and public safety, then stood in the legislature and dismissed the entire scandal as a long-standing policy that only affects a tiny percentage of the public service. No policy was changed, no leases were cancelled, no cash payments were stopped, and no one was held to account. Hayden Lansdell, as Associate Deputy Minister and Government Chief Information Officer in the Ministry of Citizens’ Services, oversees the very FOI unit that performed the redactions while the perk continues for people at his level and above. Diana Gibson, the Minister of Citizens’ Services, carries the political responsibility for the system that both pays for the vehicles and hides them.
Months after the story broke, nothing has been corrected. The same thirty-six senior officials keep drawing the money, the same redactions stay in place, and the same government that lectures British Columbians about tightening their belts keeps writing the cheques. The names that are known are collecting thousands of dollars each while the remaining members of the group of roughly thirty-six continue to benefit in silence, and the public is left paying for both the perk and the cover-up.
ADVERTISE HERE