Is $700 a meal out to lunch? I think so, since many Canadians can pay rent with what one meal cost Richard Portelance. Restaurant = lucky. Taxpayers = duped. Richard Portelance = too brazen for polite language to describe.
It is bad, but it comes from “bubble living”. Each of us on a computer here in Canada has our own bubble we live in, where daily Internet use is commonplace to the point where we’re offended if it goes away without us wanting it to, even for a few hours. Yet the standard for most of the world is no daily Internet, and at best an Internet cafe or library providing access a few minutes at a time.
It’s the same thing as buying a $700 meal. If you routinely spend more than $100 on a meal (good golly that’s pricey) then $700 isn’t unusual for a “special occasion”. Yet in reality, a special occasion meal for most Canadians would cost $100 or much less. I’d say “different strokes for different folks”, except that’s our tax money we’re talking about. It’s obscene whether Shell Oil, or the CBC does it. Not much can justify that much spent on one person, on one meal. It almost makes me feel ridiculous over being concerned about the exorbitant $14/day I’d get to cover lunches when I was on the road for my previous provincial government-affiliated jobs.
Yet, I suppose it should make me feel proud that I was concerned enough to feel concerned. Apparently, CBC execs feel nothing; How else could you not stop yourself from paying “$717 for a single dinner”? Ryan points out that pricey meals may be simply the cost of doing business to compete with moneybags like Shell Oil who no doubt help set the tone for not-affordable dinner meetings. I’d like to see not only taxpayers punishing government and CBC execs who abuse meal allowances, but shareholders punishing CEOs who are so brazen as to waste company money on corporate culture extravagance.
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Ryan | 29-Apr-08 at 5:22 pm | Permalink
Hmmm… you misunderstand my comment on Red Tory’s blog.
I don’t really see this as the “cost of doing business” with the heavyweights. I see it more as the outcome of the corporate system of economic organization. Since the corporation is essentially a massive bureaucracy with no real democratic implements to rein in its conduct other than government regulation (don’t really see shareholders accountable for anything due to limited liability), Shell can use its profits and investments from shareholders for the sake of privilege as long as they ensure the shareholders a healthy bottom line.
Since the corporate economic model is viewed as a) the most efficient and effective and b) essentially the ONLY system of economic organization (probably since it symbolizes the economic orthodoxy of free-market globalization), CBC has adopted said system. Where I would prefer a community-based, community controlled, and democratically administered network of local (maybe cooperative) stations subsidized somewhat by the national government, the CBC unfortunately is doing it the centralized, corporate-bureaucratic way. But that’s just what it means to do business in the corporate way that we’re all so accustomed to. Mind you, this is more of a Jeffersonian-capitalist or communitarian, rather than a “socialist” or “left-liberal” critique of the corporate system.
All I’m saying is that the $700 meals aren’t really the result of some massive abuse of privilege at the CBC, but the result of the adoption of the corporate model which is inherently unaccountable and inefficient. I’m not bothered so much by it, not because I don’t think it’s a hideous abuse of taxpayer funds–it is–but because it’s just not a surprise. It’s systemic, really.
RobertJago | 29-Apr-08 at 7:22 pm | Permalink
Let’s be clear - he couldn’t have spent $717 on food. Certainly $100, maybe $200, at the outside $250. But the rest, the other $400 or $500? That’s booze. That’s an alcoholic getting wasted with public funds.
That’s not a standard business practice. If I had an employee spend even $50 of my money on public food, he’d be out on his ass.
Zhu | 29-Apr-08 at 8:39 pm | Permalink
It’s not so much the money (well, a little bit for me). It’s just seeing that some people live in a different world. As you said, $700 for a meal (and yeah, booze) is just way beyond what most Canadian can afford for a fancy occasion. Can he get that? Prob. not.
Saskboy | 29-Apr-08 at 10:22 pm | Permalink
Ryan, by “cost of doing business”, I had meant what you did, that corporations set the tone of extreme waste.
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Too true Robert, it’s a disgrace that he won’t have to repay part of it. Maybe they can find a way to cut him off, if this press coverage doesn’t shame him into more reasonable tastes.
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Zhu, what world do you figure would charge less for booze, maybe we can send Richard there so he can get better deals? ;-)
RobertJago | 29-Apr-08 at 11:44 pm | Permalink
sorry not ‘public food’ (I was typing on a Mac). I meant to say on ‘getting drunk’. If he spent $50 getting drunk - I’d fire him the next day.
It’s good that we know this guy spent $700 on dinner, that’s the first part of ‘accountability’, now the next part is disciplining him. I hope that happens.
zoom | 30-Apr-08 at 6:56 am | Permalink
Excellent post Saskboy. It’s time we told these guys we won’t underwrite their lavish lifestyles anymore. If we weren’t paying for it, they’d find a more cost-efficient way to do business.