The Canadian Taxpayers’ Federation calls federal government spending on hotel rooms for Ukrainians in St. John’s that were never used an affront to taxpayers.
Provincial Immigration Minister Gerry Byrne revealed last week that the Association for New Canadians had taken over management of the hotel rooms.
Byrne estimates that since last October, the feds paid around $500,000 for hotel rooms that were never used.
Jay Goldberg, Interim Atlantic Director at the Federation, takes no issue with the premise of the program itself, but believes that allowing the rooms to sit vacant for months on end is a misuse of tax dollars.
(Photo: Canadian Taxpayers’ Federation)
Goldberg believes there needs to be better oversight. He says having the rooms vacant for a few nights, or even weeks, is totally understandable. However, when it became apparent that the rooms weren’t going to be used, government should have made a much quicker decision to rectify that.
