Manitoba premier says he will look at revealing more government travel expenses

WINNIPEG — The Manitoba government will look at proactively releasing more information about its out-of-province travel expenses, Premier Wab Kinew said Friday.

It’s a move that would bring Manitoba in line with the federal government and some other provinces.

Currently, the government posts travel expenses of the premier and other cabinet ministers on its website. But unlike the federal government and provinces such as Saskatchewan and Alberta, Manitoba does not post the expenses of senior staff or bureaucrats that accompany a minister.

The government recently posted a total of $6,649 dollars for a trip to a United Nations conference in March by Families Minister Nahanni Fontaine.

Documents obtained by The Canadian Press under the province’s freedom of information law show three other people accompanied the minister — Fontaine’s director of ministerial affairs and two members of Gender Equity Manitoba, a branch of the Families department — for a total of $23,105.

Getting information through freedom of information can be cumbersome when ministers or staff from different departments travel, as requests must be filed with each department. Getting a response to a request can take months.

Kinew, who became premier a year ago, said he was surprised by what he called an “ad hoc” system of disclosing expenses. He said he will look at including staff and bureaucrat travel expenses.

“We are standardizing things and we are going to ensure that there is a regular, systematic approach to delivering on these disclosures,” Kinew said.

“And so I think that … (we’ll) have a discussion about what that would mean potentially and what’s the art of the possible there.”

Kinew’s office recently posted $1,684 in expenses for a March trip to Toronto, which included a speech to the Economic Club of Canada and attendance at an international mining conference. The listing doesn’t include expenses of senior political staff who accompanied the premier.

In Saskatchewan, recent online travel disclosures include a trip to India for Premier Scott Moe over six days in February. It lists the names of an adviser and a deputy minister who went along, for a total of $37,397. It also includes, unlike Manitoba, a detailed list of the trip’s objectives and people the premier met with.

The federal government lists ministerial travel expenses and has a separate searchable database for senior officials including minister’s press secretaries.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 18, 2024.

Steve Lambert, The Canadian Press