Maybe Oda should just take the Greyhound

This cabinet minister can’t disclose a limo expense to save her political life!

Once again Bev Oda has screwed up with her cabinet minister expenses.  This time it’s limos — again!  You’ll recall that Oda spent about $5,500 in limo fees just after the Conservatives were sworn in as government.  Oda failed to report that expense.

This week we learn that Bev might have spent twice that amount on limo fees and failed to report any of it!  Government House Leader Peter Van Loan tried to defend the minister but fell flat on his face…

But rather than apologize, the Conservative government continues to brag that its posted expenses are far less than those of their Liberal predecessors, who brought in the mandatory reporting system.

Tory House Leader Peter Van Loan was at it again yesterday in the Commons, citing former Liberal expense totals that did not compare favourably with those being posted by current Conservative ministers.

However, Van Loan inadvertently provided the counter argument when he cited Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion posting $14,225 for limousines during a 16-month period as former environment minister.

The NDP documents showed Oda spent almost $17,000 over 15 months – and Angus said she failed to disclose $8,800 of that.

Now — I await all of the sponsorship scandal trolls to tell me how the Liberals stole everyone’s money so it’s perfectly OK for Oda to not report these expenses.  The Ottawa Citizen has a different outlook…

In the big picture, the numbers aren’t huge. Spending $1,300 for a single day of limo service as Ms. Oda did won’t bankrupt this country. Yet the symbolism is unattractive, especially because Ms. Oda is now the minister in charge of development to parts of the world where people live on pennies a day.