Dear editor:
It is nice to see a new standard of transparency for our elected officials in Cochrane.
Spurred by recent speculation on Mayor Ivan Brooker’s recent trip to Ottawa, few in this town were surprised to see charges for the mayor’s lobbying efforts with our MP.
Having spent my student life in Ottawa, I was surprised that the mayor was able to spend $108.42 on transportation from his hotel to Parliament Hill considering most of Ottawa hotels are four blocks away from Parliament on Albert/Slater streets.
In fact, I priced out a return ticket from Ottawa-Montreal with Via Rail, and the price was $65.54.
So, unless he was driven to Parliament by rickshaw, and the driver was Blake Richards himself, directly to his office, I question the mayor’s judgment on charging such an expense.
Furthermore, I believe Darcy Shier owes a promised apology to both Dan Cunin and our national broadcaster (as per his Feb. 27 letter to the editor titled, ‘Apology to mayor warranted following ‘cynical’ letter to the editor’).
But the bigger issue is whether or not our mayor should need to fly to Ottawa to lobby our MP in the first place. Richards claims he is accessible to his constituents.
As taxpayers, we spend a lot of money to fly Richards from Ottawa to this riding to visit with us nearly every week. He has an office in Airdrie and has ‘community office hours’ in Cochrane the ‘second Thursday of the month from 10 a.m. to noon at Cochrane Dodge’.
Was there not another, more affordable venue for this lobbying?
And, I’d like to make a final request for our councillors and mayor: If you are lobbying the federal government for money, and the fund says, ‘Canada’s Economic Action Plan’, please make sure you cash the cheque and the money is in the bank before declaring that we have pool funding, because this program seems to be more advertising than substance.
Jamie Kleinsteuber
