View From the Legislature

NDP Cabinet Ministers and their political friends have been living large and attending Winnipeg Jets games at taxpayers’ expense it was revealed this week.

Nearly six weeks ago it was discovered that at least one taxpayer owned crown corporation, the Manitoba Liquor Control Commission (MLCC) has 10 season tickets to the Winnipeg Jets. When asked who these tickets went to, MLCC executives suggested they went to its customers and charity. Well, not exactly.

Earlier this week it was finally disclosed that of the 440 total tickets that were available, only 4 tickets where given to charity. 66 of the tickets went to NDP board appointments. 188 went to head office staff of MLCC. 108 went to Liquor Mart store managers. 62 went to MLCC executives. 8 went to the MLCC social club and another 4 went to the office of NDP Minister Jim Rondeau.

It also turns out that Manitoba Public Insurance has Jets tickets and we are still waiting to see how many Manitoba Hydro has and who got those. By midweek, three NDP cabinet ministers, Justice Minister Andrew Swan, Conservation Minister Gord Mackintosh and Infrastructure Minister Steve Ashton had written cheques back to the government for games that they attended on the taxpayers’ time.

It also resulted in the NDP doing damage control and establishing a new policy on the fly. The new policy says NDP Cabinet Ministers can no longer take Winnipeg Jets tickets paid for by taxpayers. But, they apparently can still take Winnipeg Blue Bomber tickets and, by the way, MLCC has 126 Bomber season tickets. The NDP have said the reason they are willing to keep taking taxpayer funded Blue Bomber tickets is because they are not in the same demand as Jets tickets.

This clearly is a government that doesn’t get it. The issue isn’t that Jets tickets are hard to get, the issue is that taxpayers should not be paying for Cabinet Ministers and government appointees to be going to sporting events where they are simply there for entertainment and are performing no public role.

If all this sounds a bit like a government feeling entitled that’s because the NDP do feel entitled. All last season NDP appointees and Ministers knew that taking these tickets wasn’t the right thing to do. But, they felt entitled to them. And even after they got caught in a very publicly embarrassing fashion, they still feel entitled and are fighting to hang on to as many taxpayer funded sports tickets as they can.

The NDP have demonstrated many times they do not have the interests of Manitobans at heart. Their desire to take taxpayer funded tickets to sporting events is just the most recent example of that.