WINNIPEG– Liberal Citizenship and Immigration critic Kevin Lamoureux said Conservative Minister Jason Kenney’s use of public funds for ethno-cultural media monitoring is blatent misuse of government resources.
“Jason Kenney seems unable to resist abusing Canadians’ tax dollars. First there was his blatant misuse of government letterhead and resources to solicit $200,000 for an advertising blitz in ‘very ethnic’ ridings. Then, Minister Kenney billed Canadians for $37,000 in limo rides around Toronto and Vancouver – double the bill incurred by disgraced former Conservative Minister Bev Oda.
Now we see that the minister has used $750,000 to track his media coverage and image. This media monitoring was clearly part of a partisan vanity project and had little to do with public policy issues.
Media monitoring of Conservative election campaign events and candidates using departmental resources is a flagrant and shameful abuse of taxpayer dollars. Minister Kenney must immediately end this misuse of public funds and apologise to all Canadians.”
“The more than 7,000 pages of documents reveal the media monitoring went well beyond public policy issues related to citizenship and immigration,” reports Yahoo news.
“A series of interviews and appearances by minister Kenney and his representatives were strong contributors to the upswing in the ministerial image,” says a report from May 5, 2010, under a pie graph titled “Minister Overall Perception.”
Daily monitoring continued during the 2011 election period and included reports — graded from “very positive” to “very negative” — on campaign events by Kenney and Prime Minister Stephen Harper and their political opponents.”
“It’s outrageous that Minister Kenney would spend this much,” NDP immigration critic Jinny Sims told Yahoo! Canada News.
” A lot of people who are really vain spend time Googling themselves. Jason Kenney is using our tax dollars to have this done for him,” she said.
“This is the typical Conservative party game. It’s all about appearances and not about actual action to improve peoples’ lives and get them back to work. Instead of worrying about what people are saying about him, the Minister should be more concerned about how what he’s doing is affecting their lives.”
