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Purchasing also made it easier to transport, register and outfit the vehicles with “the appropriate equipment” months in advance of the conference, she said. The RCMP did not address a question about why vehicles from its existing fleet, or borrowed from other police forces, could not be used.

“For security reasons, the RCMP does not provide details on the specific use of the vehicles; however, they were purchased based on the operational requirements,” Damian said.

For “motorcade” purposes the government bought 154 Chevrolet Suburbans, 140 Touring-model Chrysler 300s, 109 Toyota Siennas and 28 Dodge Chargers. It acquired 88 Ford Escapes, 43 Mitsubishi Outlanders, 32 Nissan Rogues, 30 Dodge Journeys and seven Ford Explorers for “administrative” reasons.

From August through October, the feds recouped about $6.3 million from selling 167 vehicles via a government surplus website, mostly out of Quebec City and Montreal. But the attempt to sell such an unusually large number of vehicles appears to be an uphill battle.

In the last two weeks of October alone, almost 40 of the vehicle listings received no bids from potential buyers.

Photo by Andrew Vaughan/The Canadian Press

“It’s good that they’re trying to recoup something from this but the fact that they’re keeping less than 10 per cent of the cars they bought suggests they bought way too many cars in the first place,” said Aaron Wudrick, executive director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.

“Canadian taxpayers just paid for 500 new cars that we don’t need, that even if they sell them, I’m sure we’re going to take a haircut on. This is a straight-up waste of millions of dollars.”