November 19, 2025
RED FM News Desk
The Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) is calling on the B.C. government to cut travel expenditures after obtaining details of the travel expenses for the COP28 conference in Dubai.
Carson Binda, CTF’s B.C. Director, stated: “B.C. politicians and bureaucrats are spending too much on travel, and they need to shrink those expenses. Too many trips are entirely unnecessary and too many trips are too expensive.”
“Jeremy Hewitt, a bureaucrat from the Climate Action Secretariat, billed taxpayers approximately $1,000 CAD per night for a hotel room while attending the COP28 conference in Dubai from December 1 to 6, 2023. He received reimbursement for $1,900 in per diem and expenses, including $270 per day for meals. Hewitt also billed $10,050 for flights to and from Dubai,” the CTF said.
The CTF noted that this follows numerous other examples of expensive government travel “Bureaucrats racked up six-figure bills on helicopter travel between Vancouver and Victoria. Finance Minister Brenda Bailey billed taxpayers $6,600 for limo-service expenses during a four-day trip to Boston. The premier’s former chief of staff expensed more than $12,000 worth of helicopter trips over the course of eight months,” it added.
Binda stressed the financial context “B.C. government is borrowing billions of dollars a year, so it can’t afford to spend more than necessary to fly all over the world.”
Government forecasts indicate that interest charges on British Columbia’s public debt are currently costing taxpayers over $100 million per week, a figure that is projected to rise to approximately $150 million per week by 2027.
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