Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Conservative Party has racked up tens of thousands of dollars in flights on government Challenger aircraft to ferry the prime minister, staff and a longtime party fundraiser around the country, iPolitics has learned.

The Data



While the party or Conservative officials repaid the Department of National Defence for use of the planes to travel to partisan Conservative Party events, the amount the party has repaid pales in comparison to the cost to taxpayers incurred by using the government planes.

An analysis by iPolitics of invoices obtained under the Access to Information Act shows that the Conservative Party has reimbursed DND 17 times since April 2006 for a total of $37,272. However, with the cost of flying the Challengers ranging between $2,314 and $3,868 an hour, those flights cost Canadian taxpayers more than $118,090.

Trips that featured a party event in the same city as a government announcement or government business do not appear to be among the trips reimbursed by the Conservative Party.

Among those who have taken advantage of a ride on the Challengers is Mark Kihn, a longtime fundraiser for the Conservative Party and one of the close inner circle of people Stephen Harper consulted when he contemplated running for the leadership of the Canadian Alliance.

The invoices show Kihn travelled on a Challenger with Harper and his family every year but one between 2007 and 2012, usually a flight from Calgary to Ottawa just after Christmas. While Kihn was billed $1,300 for five flights — an average of $260 a flight — the December 2012 flight from Calgary to Montreal was billed directly to the Conservative Party of Canada.

Kihn has worked with Harper at least as far back as his days at the National Citizens Coalition, where Harper was president and Kihn was western vice-president and chief fundraiser.

Nigel Hannaford, a former Calgary Herald writer who now writes speeches for Harper, wrote in 2006 that Kihn was a key player when Harper launched his bids for the leadership of the Canadian Alliance and then the Conservative Party.

“Kihn was the driving force on Stephen Harper’s two leadership campaigns. In the first, Kihn raised $1.1 million with his Rolodex and direct mail for Harper to win the Canadian Alliance. Then, adding the demon dialer to the mix, he was mostly responsible for the $2.5 million raised in the 2003/04 scramble that put Harper at the head of Canada’s united right and on a rail right into the prime minister’s office.”

Kihn appears to have close ties to Harper and his family as well. Passenger logs for several of the flights reveal that the only passengers on the flights from Calgary to Ottawa were Kihn, Harper, Laureen Harper and Harper’s children Ben and Rachel. Kihn is Facebook friends with both Ben and Rachel.

Kihn’s LinkedIn profile describes him as involved in “fundraising projects” for the Conservative Party of Canada, based in Calgary. In February 2014, he appeared on the list of the board of directors of the Calgary Nose Hill Conservative riding association. His bio on the site said he had been a member of the board of directors for three years.

As opposition leader, Harper was relentless in going after use of government aircraft by the Liberal government, the Liberal Party or Prime Minister Jean Chrétien. Chrétien was equally relentless when he was opposition leader facing former Conservative Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, dubbing the government Airbus plane the “Taj Mahal.”

In November, 2012, the Harper government announced it was reducing its Challenger fleet from six planes to two. Harper still uses the Airbus A-310 for longer official trips and international travel. That plane generated a public finance controversy and a vortex of opposition one-liners when, in June, 2013, its new $50,000, red, white and blue paint job was unveiled.

Despite his attacks on his predecessors, Harper often uses the Challengers himself for personal travel – whether it is jetting across the country to his son Ben’s volleyball competitions, flying down to Sarasota, Florida with his wife or popping down to New York City with friend Ken Guarisco and their daughters for a weekend of Broadway theatre and major league baseball.

Harper’s mother, Margaret Harper, has also been a passenger aboard a Challenger at least four times, often between Calgary and Ottawa in the summer.

Over the years, DND has billed Harper $17,193 for personal use of the government Challengers. As with the tab picked up by the Conservative Party, the amount Harper has reimbursed is a fraction of the cost to taxpayers for the flights.

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Harper’s use of the Challengers for purely personal trips has also nearly tripled since his party formed a majority government. Between April 2006 (the earliest records still available) and May 2, 2011, Harper reimbursed an average of $119 a month for non-government related travel. However, from May 2011 to August 2013 the average jumped to $307 a month.

Harper’s office is quick to point out that under security guidelines, the prime minister is not allowed to travel via commercial aircraft. The same restriction does not apply to members of Harper’s family, his PMO, the Conservative Party or his friends.

For trips that are not related to government business, DND charges a rate that is supposed to be equivalent to a commercial economy class flight. For example, when Harper, Ben and Rachel flew down to New York City in September 2012 for “a private trip,” Harper was billed $951.39 for the three return flights. Making the same trip on Air Canada in economy without a seat sale would cost about $560 a person or a total of $1,680.

However, keeping a Challenger in the air for the 2.3-hour run between Ottawa and New York City and back, cost taxpayers around $8,689.

In some cases, Harper or the Conservatives have flown the Challengers to destinations that aren’t served by regularly scheduled commercial flights. Rather than charge what it would have cost for a charter flight, DND sets a price reflecting travel to the nearest destination served by commercial flights.

For example, when Harper, two MPs and six staff members flew from Ottawa to Sherbrooke, Quebec, in June 2011 for Fete Nationale events organized by the Conservative Party, then flew back from Thetford Mines, DND charged the Conservative Party $3,564, using airfare to Quebec City “as a close proxy.”

The cost to DND of flying the Challenger to the Conservative Party events was in the range of $5947.

Privately chartering a Challenger to make the same flight would have cost the Conservatives more than $12,000 once the cost per hour and the costs for crew, handling, navigation fees and landing fees were taken into account.

According to the invoices, the Conservative Party has five times picked up the tab for Harper and staff to fly to different parts of Quebec for the June 24 Fête Nationale/St. Jean Baptiste celebrations.

The party does not generally appear have to paid for Harper to participate in other celebrations across the country.

Stephen Lecce, spokesman for Harper, said the prime minister can’t just jump on a regular flight and the Conservatives have reduced the cost for ministerial travel on the Challengers by nearly 75% compared to the Liberals.

“The Prime Minister is prohibited from flying commercial for security reasons, and, as is standard practice, when he flies on Conservative Party business, the Party reimburses the government the cost of an equivalent commercial flight.”

However, it doesn’t appear to have always been the practice.

According to documents obtained in 2007 by Canadian Press, Harper’s government moved shortly after it was first elected to slash the cost of reimbursing DND for partisan use of the Challenger jets.

Initially, DND calculated the cost of flying Harper and six staff from Ottawa to Moncton for a Conservative Party by multiplying the 3.1 hours of flying time by the $2,139 an hour cost of operating the Challenger for a total of $6,630.90, Canadian Press reported.

However, the PMO soon informed DND that the party would only reimburse the cost of economy class commercial flights and calculated the tab at $3,144.18.

It has been calculated that way ever since.

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