Harper & MacKay need a Wake-up Call! Top Priority - Burton Winters

This is a post about priorities. Please take the time to read the Maclean's Story below. The compare it to the Search and Rescue situation in Newfoundland and Labrador.

Then think about Peter MacKay's statement today about doing a "review of protocols" after the loss of a wonderful young man from Labrador - named Burton Winters.

The facebook page for more information on Burton Winters story and what is being done by the people of Newfoundland and Labrador PRESS HERE.

These politicians are too arrogant and must be guided once again by people - not by a misguided ignorant position on something they clearly do not think is important. Is it the bureaucrats mentioned below responsible for "advising" Ministers such as MacKay or our Prime Minister?

We are here to tell them they are wrong.

Here's the Story

Ottawa’s high-flying bureacrats

by Gustavo Vieira on Monday, February 13, 2012 11:57am

Newly-released figures show senior federal bureaucrats paid exorbitant rates to fly to Paris, London and other destinations. Airfares purchased by officials with the Privy Council, the Prime Minister’s own department, for the final quarter of 2011 have been posted online and include several expensive trips abroad, reports the Canadian Press. One assistant secretary flew round trip to London at a cost of $6,855; a clerk paid $6,625 for the same trip. What class they were flying is unknown, but an economy ticket for a return trip between Ottawa and London can be booked two weeks in advance for less than $1,000. Flights to Paris, another favourite destination among civil servants, Dublin and other European cities were also booked at prices ranging from $4,000 to $6,000.

Travel expenses have been a sore spot for the Harper government in the past year, ever since CTV reported a chief of defence staff who had spent $1.5 million flying a government-owned plane, once to a Caribbean holiday and to NHL and CFL games. Afterwards, the Privy Council wrote an internal memo to Harper describing the rules for travel spending and highlighting reductions in travel expenses. The memo was signed by Wayne Wouters, the clerk of the Privy Council. Wouters went to London in November for $6,625.

Then, in December, Defence Minister Peter Mackay acknowledged riding aboard a military helicopter in the summer as part of a search-and-rescue mission, only to have later surface that the Air Force’s CH-149 Cormorant chopper plucked Mackay from a fishing he’d been taking in Newfoundland.