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Adrienne Clarkson was not viewed as a penny-pincher during her time as Governor General – at least not when it came to spending public money.

While she was generally regarded as a conscientious GG – accessible to the public and supportive of Canadian troops overseas – the stories of high-rolling were legion.

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Take the time in 1999 when she and her husband, John Ralston Saul, preferred to fly home from Edmonton by Challenger VIP jet, even though a (noisier, more uncomfortable) de Havilland Dash 8 was sitting on the tarmac. The cost to the taxpayer was a mere $60,000.

Then there was the 19-day circumpolar “northern identity” tour she and a 50 member delegation took to Russia, Finland and Iceland that ended up costing $5.3 million, even before the second half of the trip to Sweden, Denmark, Norway and Greenland was undertaken (it was cancelled after the expenditure story went public).

During her time in office – 1999-2005 – expenditures at Rideau Hall are estimated to have sky-rocketed. I say “estimated” because at the time, the GG’s spending was less transparent than that of the Queen herself. Clarkson was ostensibly the monarch’s representative in Canada but she preferred to see herself as the direct representative of “the Crown”, rather than the Queen, making the vice-regal position the country’s actual head of state (which is not the view of the government of Canada).