Letters

Gravy Training

November 8, 2018   ·   0 Comments

SHORT EDITORIAL

One of the more troubling aspects of the small-l liberal and the capital-L Liberal elites is the entrenched belief among many that they are entitled to their entitlements.

To honest hard-working Canadians, who wouldn’t think for a second about using others for financial gain, finding out their tax dollars are still padding the expense accounts of long-departed governors general must be maddening.

Thanks to some great digging last week, we learned that superannuated Governor General Adrienne Clarkson, a Jean Chretien appointee with a penchant for big spending, did not tuck away the taxpayer-funded credit card once she moved out of Rideau Hall to make way for her successor.

In fact, she kept it very active.

The woman has been gone from that vice-regal post since 2005 yet, we have just learned from the National Post that she is still billing—bilking?—Canadian taxpayers more than $100,000 a year for undisclosed expenses.

Raise your hand if you earn $100,000 a year, let alone claim $100,000 a year just in expenses.

You can put your hand down, Ms. Clarkson.

These expenses submitted by Ms. Clarkson have added up to $1.1 million since she left office with her partner, the academic John Ralston Saul, but does not count the additional $1.6 million in government pension she has also received during that time, and will continue to receive until death.

If this is not an unconscionable gravy train, what is?

And it needs the brakes applied.

Social media was not kind to Ms. Clarkson, of course, and it took a few days for her to respond to all the negativity, using the Globe & Mail, not the Post, to write her rebuttal.

To her way of thinking, she is still proudly serving Canadians and therefore deserves all the compensation and expense-covering that she gets.

“I believe in public service,” she wrote. “I always have.”

Bottom line?

She has no intention of backing away.

She even says her presence remains in heavy demand.

Spare us, please.

         

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