EDITORIAL: Are MPs and senators really better than you?
Email
Print
Letter to Editor
Share
Updated: October 22, 2009 9:05 AM
Sometimes, it’s all about the optics — and the optics of government MPs getting exclusive access to Winter Olympic tickets are poor indeed.
The federal government has spent nearly $500,000 on tickets to various events at February’s 2010 Olympic Winter Games in Vancouver and Whistler, including 444 tickets to the much-in-demand ice hockey tournament.
But, unless you are a member of Parliament, a senator or a government worker of some kind, you’d best be checking your TV listings if you wish to watch Canada go for gold.
The average Canadian cannot hope to afford to buy a ticket to an in-demand Olympic event.
And, for those who do have the money, it’s still a matter of getting lucky in a lottery for the right to spend the money. For MPs and senators, however, their very generous salary is being augmented by exclusive access to Olympic tickets.
Yes, MPs and senators will have to pay for tickets they get access to via the special lottery.
But that’s not the point — the point being MPs and senators and other taxpayer-funded employees should not have special access to tickets to an event that, allegedly, belongs to all Canadians.
And we would argue strenuously with an MP’s assertion that the public wants to see its political representatives at the Games.
The prime minister and premier, perhaps.
But MPs from various outposts? Please.
They would be wise to auction off any tickets they get access to and donate the funds to an amateur sports organization.
That would be a job well done by our MPs.
— Kamloops This Week
v2
