XPost: can.politics, ab.politics   
   From: "@nyet.ca   
      
   By Don Braid, Calgary Herald - August 25, 2014   
      
      
   Lukaszuk’s data roaming bill a $20,000 question   
      
      
      
   Progressive Conservative leadership candidate Thomas Lukaszuk says there’s a   
   good reason he ran up a $20,000 data roaming bill while on vacation.   
      
   The premier’s office made him do it.   
      
   â€œWhen the premier assigns me a job as deputy premier, and tells me you have   
   to   
   handle this file, it’s government business,â€� says Lukaszuk.   
      
   â€œI don’t handle files on vacation for pleasure. As deputy premier you’re   
   at the   
   service of the premier’s office. I was given an assignment to carry out.â€�   
      
   This was in October 2012 — and the premier, of course, was Alison Redford,   
   the   
   one Lukaszuk says he fought with so often she eventually demoted him and stuck   
   him in the legislature basement.   
      
   The story pops up now because somebody leaked the huge roaming bill.   
      
   Those charges began to pile up, Lukaszuk says, when the premier’s office   
   called   
   him in Poland late at night with an assignment.   
      
   The nature of that job remains secret, subject to a court-ordered publication   
   ban.   
      
   To hear the other leadership camps tell it, the leak can’t possibly have   
   anything to do with their highly ethical, moral and non-fattening campaigns.   
      
   Of course not. But Lukaszuk is now in a political jam, no doubt of that.   
      
   His data charges total nearly half as much as the $45,000 South Africa trip   
   that helped bring down Redford. And all Lukaszuk did was poke his iPad and talk   
   on Skype.   
      
   You can understand the glee among Lukaszuk’s enemies, including some who   
   remain   
   sympathetic and loyal to Redford.   
      
   Lukaszuk says he paid his personal expenses on holiday (well, he should) but   
   the government coughed up for the roaming charges.   
      
   â€œI was on vacation so I didn’t buy a data plan,â€� he says. “I should   
   have. I   
   apologize for that. I’m sorry.â€�   
      
   Lukaszuk passed more than two gigabytes worth of documents back and forth with   
   an Edmonton law firm.   
      
   Another politician who took criticism for big data bills is Energy Minister   
   Diana McQueen.   
      
   She spent $14,577 while on business in Europe last fall as minister of   
   sustainable resources.   
      
   McQueen, though, managed to get the charges reversed. Her phone company took   
   pity and substituted a charge of $191 for the entire earlier bill. McQueen’s   
   office was delighted to point this out Monday.   
      
   Lukaszuk enjoyed no such victory. He says the bill was paid, even though both   
   he and the premier’s office tried to fight the charges.   
      
   Behind the blown $20,000 lies a mystery. What exactly is the “government   
   businessâ€� he was ordered to deal with when he was half a world away?   
      
   You’d think it would involve policy, or spending, or cabinet hirings and   
   firings — any one of many things that are undeniably government-related.   
      
   But, in this case, we know nothing at all because of the publication ban.   
      
   Nobody can name the principals or even say if the government itself is party to   
   the legal dispute, whatever it is.   
      
   The law firm involved says only that the matter “relates to legal matters   
   which   
   affected the government.â€�   
      
   Curiosity is certainly justified, given the circumstances.   
      
   â€œIt was late evening hours,â€� says Lukaszuk. “I received a call.   
      
   â€œI was given orders to deal with this. That required contacting law firms in   
   Edmonton, and that required transmission of documents between the law firms and   
   various officials in the premier’s office, numerous telephone conversations   
   and   
   documents flying back and forth.â€�   
      
   Pressed again (and again) on what all this was about, he said: “I’d love to   
   tell you because then everyone would say, ‘Oh, OK, I get it, he didn’t do   
   anything wrong.’ But I’m caught up in a situation where I can’t. I’d   
   end up   
   behind bars.â€�   
      
   So far, only one thing is clear about this bizarre business — another   
   $20,000,   
   wasted.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)