{"id":167659,"date":"2025-09-25T04:48:15","date_gmt":"2025-09-25T04:48:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/167659\/"},"modified":"2025-09-25T04:48:15","modified_gmt":"2025-09-25T04:48:15","slug":"b-c-finance-minister-questioned-over-restaurant-limo-bill-during-2023-junket","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/167659\/","title":{"rendered":"B.C. finance minister questioned over restaurant, limo bill during 2023 junket"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\tDescrease article font size<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\tIncrease article font size<\/p>\n<p>B.C.\u2019s finance minister is under fire about the bill she and her team racked up during a 2023 junket.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/1758298208_703_70c8fc80.png\" alt=\"\" style=\"position:absolute;width:1px;height:1px\" referrerpolicy=\"no-referrer-when-downgrade\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Brenda Bailey was the minister of jobs, economic development and innovation when she and five staffers travelled to Boston for a biotechnology conference.<\/p>\n<p>The Canadian Taxpayers Federation says documents it obtained through freedom of information show the team ate at high-end restaurants and billed for more than $6,600 for a car service over the four days.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis absolutely raises questions about whether Minister Bailey is fit to serve as our finance minister and do the hard work of finding savings for British Columbians,\u201d Carson Binda with the Canadian Taxpayers Federation told Global News.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" class=\"c-video__image\" alt=\"Click to play video: 'Richmond holiday party pricetag inappropriate say critics'\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/WEB_6P_RICHMOND_FOI_SPENDIN_OM01H64N.jpg\" loading=\"lazy\"   data-\/><\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t2:27<br \/>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tRichmond holiday party pricetag inappropriate say critics\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\tTrending Now\n\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/globalnews.ca\/news\/11446431\/canada-avoid-recession-q3\/\" class=\"c-posts__inner\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" class=\"c-posts__thumbnail\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/1758775694_120_Canada-recession-Q3-2025.jpg\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"336\" height=\"224\" alt=\"\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t\tWill Canada avoid a recession? Here\u2019s what economists say\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<a href=\"https:\/\/globalnews.ca\/news\/11449417\/canada-indonesia-trade-agreement\/\" class=\"c-posts__inner\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" class=\"c-posts__thumbnail\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/1758775694_746_CP175063401-e1758754753960.jpg\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"336\" height=\"224\" alt=\"\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t\tCanada signs \u2018game-changing\u2019 trade deal with Indonesia, new defence pact\n\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t<\/a><\/p>\n<p>During an afternoon press conference on Wednesday, Bailey defended the trip and related spending, saying she would do it again.<\/p>\n<p>Story continues below advertisement<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe don\u2019t get to choose where we go to eat on these junkets,\u201d Bailey said.<\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\t<img decoding=\"async\" width=\"170\" height=\"225\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/09\/1758298209_554_national.jpg\" alt=\"Get the day's top news, political, economic, and current affairs headlines, delivered to your inbox once a day.\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t\tGet daily National news<\/p>\n<p>Get the day&#8217;s top news, political, economic, and current affairs headlines, delivered to your inbox once a day.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are a part of a group that\u2019s travelling around to different meetings, so it\u2019s not that I had the option to go to a Wendy\u2019s. This is a structured program that we\u2019re meeting with investors and we go the places that they are at.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Bailey said that these trips bring tens of millions of dollars in investments to B.C.<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\tMore on Politics<br \/>\n\t\t\tMore videos\n\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t&amp;copy 2025 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Descrease article font size Increase article font size B.C.\u2019s finance minister is under fire about the bill she&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":167660,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[36165,49,48,46,62496,44,714],"class_list":{"0":"post-167659","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-canada","8":"tag-brenda-bailey","9":"tag-ca","10":"tag-canada","11":"tag-economy","12":"tag-government-spending","13":"tag-news","14":"tag-politics"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167659","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=167659"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167659\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/167660"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=167659"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=167659"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=167659"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}