It's always the money.
Beleaguered deputy premier Tom Rideout will be reimbursing the people of Newfoundland and Labrador for money he received which he wasn't entitled to, according to The Telegram.
The St. John's daily revealed last month that the former premier and current deputy premier and fisheries minister:
claimed more than $23,000 for “rental accommodations” in his district of Lewisporte from late 2004 to early 2007, while tacking on an additional $53 per day for accommodations whenever he stayed in the area.
Rideout acknowledged spending the $23,000 out of his constituency allowance to rent a house in Lewisporte.
The landlord who received the cash was a key local Progressive Conservative party organizer.
House rules in effect at the time barred MHAs from charging taxpayers the cost of renting a home or apartment in their district — no matter who they rented it from.
Rideout justified the claims by saying that his Lewisporte rental home contained an office — even though he also operated a rent-free constituency office in a government-owned building less than a kilometre down the road.
MHAs were permitted to claim a per diem of $53 without receipts for accommodations whenever they visited their constituency.
Rideout charged both — a monthly house rental of between $750 and $850, and $53 each day he stayed in Lewisporte.
That means Rideout could be forking out the better part of 30 large, given that the per diem claims for accommodations came to about $6,500 according to the Telly reports.
Repaying the cash once caught seems to be the standard approach taken by politicians in the province these days, as if the numerous questions raised by Rideout's actions in this case weren't cause for having him removed from office.
The same approach has been applied to members of the legislature - Rideout included - who pocketed a bonus payment in 2004 yet never told the public about it at the time. The Premier, for his part, knew about and tacitly approved the payment to members of the House even though he himself didn't accept the cash.
The whole sorry mess - in which everything is supposedly made right if the cash gets paid back, but only after one gets caught - may work for some people but it's an ethically unsound way to run a province.
-srbp-
