CP: 'Harper pays peanuts for personal use of government jet'

OTTAWA (CP) - Documents show that Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his Conservatives are paying only a fraction of the cost of using the government's Challenger jets for partisan and personal junkets.

Invoices obtained by The Canadian Press under the Access to Information Act show that the Defence Department billed the Tories for three flights last year. The first flight cost a hefty $2,100 per hour of flying time.

But on the two subsequent flights, the Tories decided they would only pay the equivalent of commercial airfares, which don't even come close to covering the $9,000-an-hour cost of operating the Challenger.

One of those flights was for Harper and his entourage to attend a Maple Leafs game in Toronto.

The use of the military executive jets was a big issue for the Conservatives when they were in opposition.

The Tories, including Harper, accused the Liberals of blowing $11,000 an hour flying around the country in "flying limousines" for partisan purposes.

Oh, the irony.

I'm sure the "new government" of "accountability" will get right on top of paying its proper dues, right?

Not bloody likely.

It looks like Defence Minister O'Connor wasn't quite as forthcoming as he should have been back in October, 2006 in parliament:

Hon. Navdeep Bains (Mississauga—Brampton South, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, the minority Conservative government's obsession with secrecy and silencing public servants has spread to National Defence.

When asked by journalists to provide information on the Prime Minister's partisan political use of Canadian government jets, defence department officials were ordered by the powers to be to hide the true cost of the trip.

Why is the government muzzling defence department officials? Was the minister ordered by the PMO to participate in this Challenger cover-up?

Hon. Gordon O'Connor (Minister of National Defence, CPC): Mr. Speaker, there has been no political interference at all within the practices of DND, which were originally set by the Liberal Party. We are following precisely the rules set by the previous administration.

Hon. Navdeep Bains (Mississauga—Brampton South, Lib.): Mr. Speaker, information previously available through access to information is now regularly blacked out, just like the names on these flights. Derek Burney's name was scrubbed from the Stealth flight to Washington. The names of the Conservatives who took joyrides to Halifax and went to hockey games with the Prime Minister are gone.

Last year the Conservatives said it cost $11,000 per hour to operate these flying limousines. Now they only claim 10%. Why will the government not release the passenger list? Will the Conservative Party settle its outstanding bills?

Hon. Gordon O'Connor (Minister of National Defence, CPC): Mr. Speaker, as I said, we are following the practice of the previous government. We have paid for any flights that were not on official government business. I want to point out that the previous government was using Challenger jets at twice the rate that this government is.

Those payments, however, were "peanuts" as we now see.