OTTAWA – Former cabinet minister Bev Oda was awarded a golden pig statuette Wednesday in recognition for excellence in public trough diving.

Oda edged out other high rollers at the federal, provincial and municipal level to earn the Canadian Taxpayers Federation’s lifetime award for “bilking taxpayers over the long haul.”

The chain-smoking MP and international co-operation minister who sailed into the sunset last year with a $52,000 pension was given the red-carpet treatment at a glamorous ceremony on Parliament Hill.

She was cited for her $16 orange juice performance in London, England and other starring roles in the backseat of limos when other rides were available, and hefty bills to restore hotel rooms to their non-smoking state.

The federation’s Gregory Thomas said Oda was “the lead horse in the stampede of greed.”

The Teddy Awards – named after Ted Weatherill, a federal appointee sacked in 1999 for gorging on the public dime – presented other “sinister sows of shame” to union boss Jimmy Hazel, an Alberta cabinet minister and an aboriginal chief.

Hazel won for telling a newspaper “we don’t need to f------ prove anything to anybody about costs” after the Maintenance and Skilled Trades Council charged a Toronto school board $143 to attach a pencil sharpener to a desk with four screws, $3,000 to install an electrical outlet and $266 to hang three pictures.

Former Alberta tourism minister Christine Cusanelli won for billing taxpayers to take her mother and daughter to the London Olympics.

Saskatchewan Chief Roger Redman was feted for earning $194,000 tax-free in 2011 to lead the Standing Buffalo First Nation – home to 443 people.

Mark.Dunn@sunmedia.ca

Twitter: @MarkDunnSun