Travel expenses of Manitoba cabinet ministers posted online, but not those of staff

Out-of-province travel expenses for Manitoba cabinet ministers are being posted online again after a hiatus of more than a year, but the disclosure still does not include spending by accompanying political or department staff, which can be higher.

One of the expenses posted this week, for Families Minister Nahanni Fontaine, lists $6,649 for a trip to New York between March 10 and 15, including airfare, hotel and meal costs.

Documents obtained by The Canadian Press under the province's freedom of information law show there was more. The province also paid for Fontaine's director of ministerial affairs and two members of Gender Equity Manitoba, a branch of the Families department.

The total cost for all four individuals was $23,105, the documents state. Hotel rooms accounted for more than half the cost, while flights, ground transportation, meals and unspecified "incidentals" made up the rest.

The four attended an annual conference of the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women.

Similarly, Premier Wab Kinew's office recently posted $1,684 in travel expenses for a trip to Toronto in March that included a speech to the Economic Club of Canada and attendance at an international mining conference.

The listing does not include expenses of senior political staff who accompanied the premier.

Records give taxpayers assurance: PC leader

Wayne Ewasko, interim leader of the Opposition Progressive Conservatives, said it may be time to break with the practice of the current and previous governments and list staff expenses online as well.

"It probably wouldn't hurt to take a look at what the policies are and the limits and those [types] of things," Ewasko said in an interview.

"It also gives the taxpayers of Manitoba that assurance what are they getting from these trips that the ministers or the premier or the staff are [taking]?"

Until this week, out-of-province travel expenses for the premier and cabinet ministers were only listed up to March 31, 2023. That led to the Progressive Conservatives, who were in power until losing the provincial election last October, and the governing New Democrats accusing each other of withholding the information.

Kinew told reporters on Tuesday that he told "people" to post more recent expenses online, and the records were posted soon afterward.