CALGARY — Calgary’s mayor is on the hot seat after allowing a private company to pay for his flight to Toronto for a speaking engagement.
Naheed Nenshi is touring Toronto’s business community this week to promote Calgary.
His flight was covered by Kasian Architecture, a Calgary firm which is playing host to one of the events.
The tab for the flight comes to just over $720 and some critics say it’s inappropriate for Nenshi to accept any free offers from any companies.
Nenshi is defending his actions, saying he is not aware of the city having financial ties to Kasian Architecture.
He says he will be speaking at a conference in Vancouver next week and his flight there will also be paid for by one of the companies involved.
“It is normal for the host of such an event to reimburse a speaker for their travel expenses so the cost does not fall on the taxpayer,” Nenshi said in a statement.
He said he was invited by the company to go and then realized there was a lot more interest, so he decided to extend his visit, with those expenses being paid out of his travel budget.
“Certainly mayors, politicians and business executives can accept speaker’s fees for some of the activities they engage in,” said Lori Williams, an associate business professor at Mount Royal University.
“But perhaps the better thing would have been to actually pay a speaker’s fee rather than make it look like it’s a similar sort of situation.
“It may ultimately be in the best interests of the mayor to make much more clear in the future what is a fee for a service he provides and what is a benefit being provided for future consideration.”
Coun. Andre Chabot said Nenshi has made a mistake, and it’s clear to him that Kasian was trying to use the mayor to drum up business.
“(The company) might have used the mayor’s name to draw more attendees to their event,” Chabot said.
“There certainly was a tangible benefit to Kasian to do that.
“I don’t think the mayor should have accepted this.”
The Canadian Taxpayers Federation said Nenshi didn’t do anything wrong, but warned he is treading a fine line.
“As long as he is disclosing this, and it’s not becoming a sort of regular thing where he’s no longer being the mayor, he’s some sort of professional speaker ... then I don’t think it’s a big issue,” said spokesman Scott Hennig.