Big Spending in the Governor General's Office

To learn more about Canadian or Quebec politics, both McGill University and Concordia University in Montreal offer wonderful political science degrees, that you may want to look into.

Montreal's Concordia University has a wonderful women's studies program at the Simone do Beauvoir Institute

The duties of a governor general is to represent the ruling British Monarch in Canada. The governor general carries out administrative duties and also celebratory or festive activities. We will now look at the three female governor generals of Canada, two of which were from Montreal.

Adrienne Clarkson took her role seriously as governor general of Canada, though some would argue that her spending was out of control. She hosted many events and traveled extensively. During her time at Rideau Hall, the expenses of this office went up by 200%. To be fair, some of the expenditures were a result of different ministries unloading certain expenses they once carried, over to the Governor General's office.

In 2003, Clarkson did a 19 day tour to Russia, Iceland, and Finland with 50 prominent Canadians working in the arts. The media dubbed it a waste of money especially since most Canadians had to tighten their belts. It also came at a time when there were scandals in the Canadian government reported to the public and the public was getting leery of the goings on in Parliament.

These scandals and the public concern got many politicians to decry that it was time the governor general's office tightened up and reduced expenses or the position of Governor General was eliminated completely. A public poll was also conducted at the time and most Canadians polled thought that Clarkson was "too grand" for the office." Adrienne personally responded that she was asked by the prime minister to represent Canada on these state visits. Clarkson defeated that the trip was successful, especially concerning the warm welcome she received from President Valdmir Putin of Russia. She also stated that the trip was commissioned by the Department of Foreign Affairs and paid for by funds allocated for this purpose by Parliament. When the cost exceeded 5 million dollars the continuation of the tour which was to include, Denmark, Sweden, Norway and Greenland was canceled.

Even though Parliament always approved the Governor General's budget, the office was from that time forward subject to scrutiny. In 2004 her operating budget was reduced by 10 percent.

Source:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrienne_Clarkson