Thursday, September 29, 2011

Months of Challenger

According to the CBC, Airshow has used the RCAF Challenger executive jets for a total of 417 hours since 2009. FOUR HUNDRED AND SEVENTEEN.

Defence Minister Peter MacKay has spent hundreds of hours and millions of dollars on Challenger jets since 2009, according to flight logs, with one trip costing more than $200,000.
An analysis of the logs by CBC News shows between January 2009 and June 2011 MacKay used a Challenger for more than 471 hours.
An hour on the Challenger in 2009 cost $10,104, including maintenance and the pilot's salary.
MacKay has spent days defending himself over accusations he's abusing the VIP planes. He says he uses them only for government business, particularly to travel to repatriation ceremonies when Canadian soldiers are killed in Afghanistan.
The logs show the cost of that.
In July 2009, a Challenger flew empty from Ottawa to Tofino, B.C., to pick up MacKay and fly him to Trenton, Ont., for one of the repatriation ceremonies.
It also returned him to Tofino an hour after the ceremony to continue his holiday, and flew back empty to Ottawa from the West Coast.
The Challenger spent more than 20 hours in the air, at a cost of $205,111.20.
Had he flown on a commercial airline, leaving the day before and returning the day after, an executive class ticket would have cost about $5,600.
In November 2009, MacKay was at a Canadian Forces appreciation night at an Ottawa Senators game. He got on a Challenger at 11:02 p.m. ET to fly to Halifax, arriving at 1:34 a.m. ET. The next morning, he announced infrastructure funding, then left on the Challenger again at 9 a.m. to fly to Toronto, landing at 10:47 a.m.
The plane spent 4.9 hours in the air at a cost of $49,509.60.
John Baird, then the public works minister, flew commercial. That cost $1,032.66.

At a forty hour work week, that's close to three months in the air, or one month per year since 2009.

Between that and his little uniform fetish, he's pathologically using the Canadian Forces, and the Canadian taxpayer, as his personal playground and private aircraft provider. 

And a quick note on the repatriation. Speaking for myself, I find it insulting that he uses the jet to cross the country at great expense to attend a repatriation ceremony for an hour before flying back...to a holiday TOFINO! If he's really committed to the troops in that way, then he might visibly attempt to make some personal sacrifice in solidarity with military at war. Leaders of soldiers (or those who play at it) tend not to take vacations until the job is done. When emergencies happen, they cut their vacations short.

The sense of fucking entitlement this man and his prime minister harbour is truly without limits. Hold on kids, we've got years more of this shit. Watch them, next these wannabe banana republic despots will be giving themselves 2000% raises as the Canadian economy follows the rest of the world down the drain.

7 comments:

Oemissions said...

TOFINO?

Frank Frink said...

That's an awful lot of lobster boils.

Steve said...

I read that he only went to 9 reperation ceremonies, the rest all his entiltlements. Oh and Queen Baird is ignoring tradition if not law.

Anonymous said...

What I find shocking is the amount of vacation time this gannet gets. I can't even afford to get to Tofino let alone vacation there, fly to a repatriation ceremony then fly back. Lobster suppers, fishing trips in Newfoundland and on to announcements in Pictou. This guys life is a holiday. What are these guys, Royalty, rock stars? Has Harper been quoted ridculing Dingwall and his "entitled to my entitlments"quip so long ago?

ThinkingManNeil said...

I'd say what I'd like seen done with this whole, rotten, treasonous neocon bunch but then I'd have CSIS and Captain Stevie Peevie's Taser Troopers (RCMP) breathing down my neck.

I await the people's revolution.

N.

Alison said...

Lobster repatriation. *snerk*

Gloria said...

We were warned what would happen to Canada, if Harper won a majority. He is so damned arrogant, as this is their right to piss away our tax dollars. The billion dollar fake lake was bad enough. But, this whole sale thieving of, the "HARPER GOVERNMENT", is going past the point of sanity.

However, the recession is just for the people, not for the politicians. They are permitted to treat their people like crap. Lie and thieve from them. Force them into taxes they can't begin to pay. BC is a prime example of Harper and Gordon Campbell's treachery. And, then Harper appoints that s.o.b. of a Campbell as High Commissioner to England.

Can you imagine a ministers business card??? Having Canada removed from the card?? And precise instructions for GOLD lettering at that.

I say, this no good for nothing Conservative government, should be expelled, right bloody now!!!