Former Environment Minister Catherine McKenna spent over $100,000 on taxi fares while in Ottawa during her tenure in the cabinet position.
According to Rebel News, McKenna’s travel expenses were released through an order paper question submitted with the House by NDP MP Heather McPherson.
“With regard to ministers’ office expenses in the National Capital Region: (a) what was the total amount spent on taxis by each ministers’ office for each fiscal year since 2015-2016, including the current fiscal years; (b) how many employees at each minister’s office have access to taxi vouchers; (c) what is the overtime cost of each minister’s driver for each fiscal year since 2015-16, including the current fiscal year; (d) what was the total amount spent on Uber for each minister’s office for each fiscal year since 2015-16, including the current fiscal year; and (e) how many employees at each minister’s office have access to Uber vouchers?” asked McPherson.
Records show that the Ministry of Environment and Climate Change spent over $143,000 on taxis.
Most of this spending was accrued during McKenna’s time as minister. Current Environment Minister Jonathan Wilkinson was only responsible for approximately $30,000 of the entire sum spent by the ministry on transportation within Ottawa.
This is not the first time that McKenna’s travel habits have raised eyebrows. In March, Rebel News reporters asked the Infrastructure Ministry for records regarding her official vehicle use since November 20th, 2019 and were told that no such records existed.
“After a thorough search no records were found concerning this request as The Minister’s driver has not maintained a log for the usage of the executive vehicle,” the ministry told Rebel News.
Earlier this month, McKenna also hid the locations of subsidized public works to the Parliamentary Budget Office citing “privacy and security reasons.”
According to Blacklock’s Reporter, thousands of projects were withheld from the office by McKenna after analysts have been trying for months to dig up information on them.
“We provided more than 33,000 itemized projects to the Parliamentary Budget Office,” said McKenna.
“In addition there are also approximately 8,500 Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation projects related to housing, which we do not make public because of privacy and security reasons,” she said.
