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More people in Mr. Giambrone’s ward speak Chinese, Vietnamese, Italian, Spanish and Portuguese than French, but back in the glory days, he justified the lessons by noting he was on the board of a francophone association of Ontario municipalities. Judge that as you will, at least it offered a theoretical benefit to the taxpayer. Once he knew he wasn’t coming back, however, he knew there was no way the taxpayer could possibly benefit from his burgeoning bilingualism … at least until he shows up in federal politics. (Come on. You know it’s going to happen.) As such, we shouldn’t have had to foot the bill. It’s as simple as that.

The timing of these expense reports is terrific, news-wise, because there isn’t all that much to do these days except wait for Rob Ford to take over and find out what he’s capable of. So there is a temptation to go after the low-hanging fruit — Kyle Rae’s $421 donation to cover a permit for Mr. Leatherman Toronto’s “Leather Ball in the Park,” for example, and myriad donations by councillors to all manner of causes that people might or might not agree with: soccer teams, charity marches, the fights against various diseases.

Those expenses add up. In the first nine months of this year, 14 councillors filed expenses under “other” — mostly donations and tickets to charity events — in excess of $2,000. But more than the money, I object to the randomness of it. There is no net detriment when a councillor donates $500 of taxpayer money to a local public school library, but what about all the public schools in the wards where councillors don’t donate anything to anyone? Why should they have $500 less to buy books? It’s like combining government spending with roulette.