Opposition leaders want to know if spending abuses will ever end after revelations Tuesday a Niagara Parks executive ran up nearly $400,000 in credit card charges on expensive dinners, nights out and fancy hotel rooms.

Both New Democratic Leader Andrea Horwath and Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak said excessive spending has got to stop.

“Today we learned that a Niagara Parks Commission executive racked up $400,000 in expenses on everything from $10,000 hotel stays in England to a $1,800 night club tab, to a $200 trip to the liquor store,” Horwath said in the Legislature.

“The executive even charged a pound of Starbucks coffee to the commission and claimed it as a meal,” Horwath said.

The commission’s former executive director of revenue operations and business development, Joel Noden, left his position last week to pursue other opportunities.

Tourism Minister Michael Chan said the credit card charges were incurred from 2006 to 2009 before the government brought in new expense rules for all public boards, commissions and agencies in late 2009.

Premier Dalton McGuinty created tightened the rules on expenses and how public contracts are awarded after a series of spending scandals called into question the accountability of provincial public bodies.

“These types of expenses are no longer acceptable,” he said.

However, tourism ministry spokesperson Mukunthan Paramalingham added public dollars were not being wasted by the former Niagara executive as the commission generates its own revenue through commercial activities such as attractions, public transit, golf courses and retail services.

This is not the first time the commission has faced troubles.

Last year, it came under fire for giving the American holders of the lease for the Maid of the Mist boat tour a 25-year renewal without putting the contract up to outside tenders.

The Liberals stepped in and ordered the commission to open the contract up for competition. A competitive process is still underway, said Paramalingham.

Chan said he met with the commission’s board chair Fay Booker last Wednesday to discuss the expense issue.

“I have delegated to her to look into the matter and keep me informed,” he said. “Those expenses were incurred before the fall of 2009. I think it is not acceptable now after the premier sent out the directive but whatever happened in the past, happened.”

Chan’s answer just isn’t good enough, said Hudak who added expense abuses seem to happen “over and over” again under the Liberal government.

Hudak pointed to last year’s eHealth Ontario scandal. The provincial auditor found $1 billion of public money was spent pursuing electronic health records with little to show for it.

“I can’t understand this, at all,” said Hudak. “You wonder what the minister is going to do about this but he just seems to shrug his shoulders and look the other way.”

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Chan is just taking McGuinty’s lead, Hudak said.

“Sadly that is exactly what the premier has done — from eHealth to OLG (Ontario Lottery and Gaming) to the Niagara Parks Commission, it just keeps happening over and over again and nobody pays the consequences,” he said.

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