Dear Editor:
Once again, our illustrious former governor general Adrienne Clarkson is bilking us.
She continues to bill Canadian taxpayers for more than $100,000 annually in office expenses and has claimed more than $1.1 million in such expenses since “retiring” from Rideau Hall in 2005.
These expenses are in addition to the $1.6 million Clarkson has collected to date as a government pension. It also does not include the $3 million in a startup grant (plus up to $7 million over 10 years) that was paid to establish Clarkson’s charitable organization.
How many breakfasts would this provide for the tens of thousands of Canadian children who daily arrive at school famished?
Naturally, Clarkson’s office has refused to answer questions about what the money is being spent on.
Even when in office, her expenses came into scrutiny, particularly profligate expenses of $5.3 million on an official 19-day jaunt to Russia, Iceland and Finland.
It appears that Clarkson has experienced first-hand the scourge of poverty in her own youth, yet has conveniently chosen to ignore the ever-increasing number of Canadian families threatened by poverty today.
Surely our former head of state must have considered that her excessive spending would become public domain and that she would have to respond to her egregious misuse of public funds.
Or is this simply an all-too-common malaise of public figures who, once chosen or elected, become inviolate and unaccountable.
Barrie Street
North Vancouver
