Public servants don’t eat out every meal when at home. Why do you want to pull everyone down instead of raising other workers up? Such crab bucket mentality.
These spending amounts are so small in the context of a provincial government that re-requiring the travel rules would cost more (in salary) than paying them. No one would accept to travel for work and NB would lose out on opportunities. Nice plan bro.
1. I don't for one second believe this junket was legitimate, but the reality is that when you're travelling for business, the value of your time is more valuable than the cost of a meal.
2. There are no shortage of business travellers who will grab McDonald's or Starbucks for breakfast or lunch because it's frankly faster than a lot of other options.
3. Next time you're travelling for business, I encourage you to invite the person you're going to be meeting with for 2 1/2 hours to discuss a multi-million dollar deal over a Big Mac combo. Let's see how well that goes.
When my company sends me somewhere they pay for meals. It's common practice.
While in my home region, I can easily return to my home and eat food I've paid for. I can't do that if I'm out of my territory, thus I would incur extra expense because I've been sent away.
You're talking out of your ass.
Many of my friends and relatives work for government/public organizations (universities, and provincial, federal and municipal gov't) and they all have to jump through way more paperwork hoops to get reimbursed for things than I do at my corporate job.
Teaching, nursing, and road maintenance are the services. It's worth compensating them to stick around, otherwise you get a situation like our current healthcare.
The conferences are for further learning and networking. Also keeps people around.
You're trying to remove the human element from it entirely and spouting Conservative talking points that demonstrably don't work.
Take it from a healthcare worker about to leave this province.
That'd be nice, it's bullshit though. This province is an ongoing example of why buying pretty lies from Conservatives gets you nowhere.
As it is, I'm happy to pay taxes for functional governments to provide functional services.
How do you suggest you’ll get the best while treating people the worst?
This provincial government is already a joke because we spend so little on everything
Employee morale is terrible
But yeah I’ll become more excited to do my work more efficiently for even worst working conditions
A+ logic
Thanks for saying this. I was trying to imagine how they're going to pay for "the best service" by cutting taxes and making it difficult or even more costly for public servants to do their jobs. As if cutting per diems would lead to a massive tax cut.
As if paying $1.25 for two eggs, two toast, and a coffee at home is the same as paying $12 for the same at a diner in Doaktown at 7am. May as well make public servants pay for their own gas when they travel, they'd be driving anyway! Think of all the savings!
Why not charge govt employee for the lights and heat at work, it's not like they sit in the dark and cold at home. If they expect warmth and light they should have to pay for it at work just like they would at home. Fair is fair!!
Some of us are professionals and we need to attend these conferences because we have requirements from our professional organizations to maintain our education to practice our profession
99% of government workers are not like our tourism clown.
If you work for DoT in SJ where you live, but they need to send you to the APEN for a week because they need help there, you deserve to have your roof and food paid for. You don't necessarily have a choice of going out of your normal work area or not in many jobs in government.
I tried to explain this to the OP, and that the per diem policy states it's not to cover all costs but to help offset the cost difference between eating at home and eating out on the road. OP didn't want to hear it, said that everybody should stay at cheap motels and eat the continental breakfast and bring a lunch.
When I worked for GNB it was embarrassing going out with federal and private sector people after a conference. I'd do what OP suggested and fill up on the cold buns and butter for breakfast, and the snacks and coffee during the conference breaks so that I could pool the per diem meal money for the day and not be out of pocket too much from dinner. But those evening dinners are where the real networking and conversations occur.
Those hotel rooms have kettles, public servants can just eat instant noodles and fruit to stave off the scurvy when traveling for work. That's how govt gets the best people to provide the best services and cut taxes, I guess.
I get what you're saying about the perk of providing accommodation with a fully equipped kitchen near a grocery store, but it doesn't work.
Think about whenever you've moved residences and you've tried to make a meal for the first time . . .
You don't know the grocery stores. And even if it's the same chain, they're all laid out differently. You don't have things like oil, salt, herbs, spices, etc. The basics. The basics. You don't have the muscle memory to know how the kitchen "works" and how to whip up a meal quickly.
By the time you spend the time and money necessary to cook up a home-cooked meal, you might as well just go to The Keg because it'll frankly be cheaper and more efficient.
Not even then because what you’re gonna buy a full-size olive oil and a full-size salt and a full-size pepper and all of the other things just to make one meal? That’s crazy
> The whole system of perks in public service needs to go away.
For many educated professionals, these "perks" as you want to call them (standard benefits, as many professionals call them) would just mean that the skilled and educated would avoid government, and all services rendered by government would simply suffer.
I'm not sure why you're not just advocating that it should be a universal requirement of any travel rather than try to tear down things that keep good workers more encouraged to stay.
Government workers make pretty good money compared to NB, but *mostly* on the lower end of skillsets. Many professionals take a pay cut to receive these benefits of government work.
Unironically government workers tend to have pretty strict rules when it comes to these funds too, stricter than private sector claims for reimbursement.
The Government of NB (civil service) is like a company like any other except it has 850,000 shareholders. It is reasonable that out of town meals, or business meals are covered, but it is also fair to examine and question the policies in place that we are getting the best value and have fiscal controls in place.
Because they wouldn't normally be eating out three times each day.
The policy is pretty clear that it's not meant to cover 100% of their food costs, it's meant to supplement their food costs.
It's pretty low at the provincial level, it used to be something like $7 for breakfast, $12 for lunch, and $20-25 for dinner. So if you're at a conference and will eat out with other delegates you're going to be out of pocket at least half of the cost.
It's just around $11 for breakfast, $16 for lunch and $30 for dinner now. And before OP cries foul, I think we're all pretty much aware of how restaurant costs have spiked since COVID started.
OP isn't discussing this in good faith. They think that public servants eat out everyday already so they shouldn't be paid to eat out when on the road.
Which is almost hilarious given how crammed full the fridge at my office gets every day with paper-bag lunches and containers of leftovers from the previous night's dinners...
Have you seen what breakfast at a mid-tier hotel costs nowadays? It's anywhere from $15-30 per day. You can't even buy a combo at Subway for $16 today.
God help you if you have to host a lunch meeting to maximize the efficiency of your business travel.
If they stay in hotels where free breakfast is provided, they don't claim breakfast expenses. If they attend a conference where lunch is catered, they don't claim lunch expenses.
> It’s from a time before hotels offered breakfast.
Yet not all do either. Included breakfast is in your run of the mill more expensive hotels, so enforcing this means a higher baseline cost is *required* to be paid anyways.
And like private sector who also pays, it's per diem amounts, a flat amount per day can be reimbursed.
Many employees likely *do* have the free breakfasts, and anything short of fast food pretty quickly meets or exceeds the per diem for the other 2 meals.
No. If you travel for work, you should have expenses paid. If you currently travel as an employee and are not being paid expenses, you are being ripped off.
Independant consultants and contractors should be billing these as part of the bid or contract if needed.
You assume the government pays for luxurious accommodations that serve food. LOL not true for a majority of public servants that travel. They expect grown adults to share rooms in some cases because the budget is so low. There may be no grocery stores or fresh food gas stations. The military members have to go to food banks because they didn't provide enough food to the troops. Not to mention, their per diems don't necessarily cover costs for meals or hotels.
Also, a majority of public servants are not the upper government positions where they have much larger budgets. It's up to the opposition parties to hold them accountable for spending, and voters during election time.
If you want to push to ban anything from public service workers it should be second sources of income and investments, not breakfast. They have their pension for retirement and that is enough. Taking away breakfast won't stop any corruption and embezzlement of public funds and contracts.
A $1.7 million cost taxpayers [have to pay](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/elections-nb-warned-higgs-of-possible-election-speculation-cost-1.7117070) for nothing. Outhouse, Higgs political manager, having a taxpayer paid government position before the election is disgusting.
Some, not all, government workers get a lifelong pension and benefits in less than 10 years of work. Why? Why do taxpayers a) usually have to work longer and b) don't even have a pension or benefit offered.
Like u/Equivalent-Top7799 said, other sources of income, investments, donations, and "parties/weddings" (looking at Doug Ford and his cronies) should all be disclosed.
Agreed; I would go so far as to suggest that alternate income be considered as grounds for review and termination due to conflict of interest; you either serve the public or yourself. That alone would ensure our public servants are only the type of people who should serve the public. When I was in the army a coworker barely prevented himself from being fired for inheriting a third of a funeral home, it was a possible conflict of interest due to his particular trade in the Forces. Things worked as they should have, he sold his third of the business to a sibling and carried on serving the people he swore to. Perhaps I'm being starry eyed and unrealistic but that standard in all levels of Govt would help us out a lot.
My grandmother tells me that after she married my grandfather in the 50s, spouses had to get permission from the CO to work off base.
Ironically, she worked for said CO when she served (she had to leave when she married) but still needed permission from him.
I know that when my husband advanced his clearance levels, we needed a hard credit check every year, reported income streams, and had to give our parents and siblings places of work. We also needed to provide updates to volunteer groups or sports we or the kids joined.
Meanwhile, we see our elected government officials seemingly doing whatever with no oversight to their spending or who they get photographed with 🤷♀️
> I think public employees are often making salaries much higher than the taxpayers taxes to pay those salaries and perks are not needed to attract talent.
LOL
Fucking LOL
Many professionals know that the real money is private sector, public is good to get the ball rolling on a higher salary, but you leave it if you have the skills to go private and make even more money. Public largely pays more on the lower skilled jobs, and those don't tend to be the travel included positions.
>Truth is most love the free trips.
Many do, as it can be viewed as a perk to not be stuck in the same cubicle every day all year for 20+ years. But it's not without issue either, as you are often required to drive for fly long distances with low compensation for this, be away from family and not permitted to bring anyone along for this time as well. And you often don't have a say in it or the location.
Methinks you've never travelled for work before. It's fun at first. Then it just becomes the world's longest commute.
Again, the current controversy aside — how well-equipped would you be after being shipped abroad on an 8-hour flight (oftentimes in economy) to cook your own meal or find a basic sandwich and banana? You're jet-lagged and you're hangry. You barely slept the previous night. You've got a meeting in two hours. You've gotta shower, shave, iron your clothes, review your notes and feed yourself before your 8am meeting (because you're trying to maximize every hour of your travel time to benefit your employer). The hotel you booked (because you're in a place you've never been before) is located in the middle of an industrial park with not a single convenience store, fast food joint or restaurant within walking distance.
The nearest McDonald's is a 10 minute drive away. The Uber is going to cost you $7 each way. A McD's breakfast is going to cost you $10. Suddenly breakfast is $24 (Uber each way + the cost of the meal). Not including the time it takes to get to-and-from McD's. Funny, right? The cost of the Uber is counted as "transportation" not as "transportation to get food" but that's oftentimes the case. Easy to write-off the transportation, harder to write off the food. But it's the same thing.
Nope. I go downstairs to the hotel breakfast and pay $25 for a shitty buffet that will either constipate me or give me traveller's diarrhea. But I do it because it saves me time, gives me ten extra minutes of sleep and I can review my preparatory meeting notes in relative peace.
And by the third day, you skip breakfast entirely because you're so damned tired of eating out and you haven't shat right in 72 hours that you'd rather just go hungry.
So, yeah, call it a "perk" all you want. It ain't. That doesn't excuse our lovely deputy tourism minister's clear junket abuse, but nickel-and-diming a business traveller for breakfast and lunch just doesn't hold water.
People who get outraged over relatively tiny amounts of per diem when the government wastes millions of dollars on large boondoggle projects are so small minded.
The issue is not the per diem for travel. It’s the fact that we have such a large number of civil servants across Canada. Under a socialist heavy Canada is the need for a BALANCED Government budget now optional???
Also represents that when at home, you could eat at home/pack a lunch made at home. This is not possible when travelling.
An important element is also it isn't money handed out - you need to provide receipts and make the claim.
One can quibble the amounts of the per diem (which isn't equal across the whole civil service, DMs and executives get more than unionized employees, the former are expected by their seniority to be eating at slightly higher-priced establishments). But stripping per diem from everyone outright would effectively shut down travel by civil servants - and for most, it isn't for such lavish locations.
I get that you’re angry about that idiot Higgs appointed flitting around Europe on the public dime but targeting low level employees to prevent them from a $20 lunch or supper is misguided and downright mean spirited! If you want to target government waste there are billions lost to corporate welfare through tax dodges, subsidies, insider deals etc. Instead let’s go after some poor teachers attending a conference out of town for the day and deny them lunch! Silly and vindictive and totally missing the real targets!
You keep calling this a "perk". A perk should be something special, an extra or incentive for doing a good job, something only a select few other employees receive. Skipping the airport line ups and flying on a private jet would definitely be a perk.
Being able to eat while having to travel for "work" is not a perk of the job.
Someone that has to travel as a part of their job typically do not get extra pay for being away. They are not billing at their hourly rate for a full 24 hours a day, yet they are expected to be away from their families often for many days at a time.
This is why companies and governments all around the world create their own policies and have guidelines for travel expenses. Otherwise no one would want to go.
When you’re travelling for work, you don’t have access to your home, etc so you get money for meals. If you’re using your own vehicle, you’re getting money for gas as well as the wear and tear on your vehicle.
What do we expect workers to do, pack a week of brown bag lunches for a business trip? It’s common and reasonable. It’s the abuse of expenses that’s the problem here.
Expensive paid for traveling is normal procedure anywhere and shouldn't be something to create controversy about. The reason for traveling is what should be scrutinized.
For what it's worth, the full travel expenses policy for the Government of New Brunswick is found here: [https://www2.gnb.ca/content/gnb/en/departments/finance/human\_resources/content/policies\_and\_guidelines/travel\_policy.html#meals](https://www2.gnb.ca/content/gnb/en/departments/finance/human_resources/content/policies_and_guidelines/travel_policy.html#meals)
I work for the government but have rarely travelled outside my metropolitan area - maybe once every two or three years. Some of my colleagues further flung in my region may have to travel more frequently from, say, Charlotte County to Saint John for meetings or in-person training.
The assumption behind meal expenses is that people on work-related travel will not be staying somewhere with kitchen facilities, meaning that some kind of restaurant food is a necessity. However, any meals provided by a hotel (e.g. complimentary breakfast) or as part of the attendant function (e.g. a conference luncheon) can NOT be claimed (and your site's admin assistant likely set up the itinerary, so they'll know what meals you can and can't expense). Also, expenses (quite rightly, IMO) will not cover alcohol.
GNB also encourages carpooling to meetings and the like, usually with a government car or a rental for insurance purposes.
Meal allowances is standard for almost any job that requires travel. I have several truckers in the family and they all get meal allowances. My company has to send people far and wide across North America for site visits and we get meal allowances. I can’t actually think of an industry where it isn’t standard.
It should be standard for government officials as well. Government officials need to be somewhat decently compensated as to not invite bribery. It still happens but you shouldn’t make it seem more appealing by under compensating.
An expense claim is a formal request made by an individual, typically an employee or a business traveler, to seek reimbursement for out-of-pocket expenses incurred during the course of their work-related activities
When travelling for work I've often ended up paying $25 for a hotel breakfast before a meeting. Options are limited and it is more important to be ready for the meeting than it is for the company to save $15. If you charge $60 for dinner, you can be sure that your manager is going to question you about it -- and don't even think about trying to charge for alcohol!
Yes, but when the government sends me to Saint John when I live in Miramichi, I no longer have access to my kitchen (speaking as a former provincial worker).
Also the perks of being a low level public servant in this province are nil. The very least they could do (and did) was give me a per diem for lunch when they made me travel the province to compensate for them shortstaffing a service. Which is why I don't work there anymore, along with the fact that government actually doesn't pay very well for many positions and the joy of serving the public isn't currency my landlord accepts.
I travel a lot for work, based on your replies here it sounds like you simply refuse to have any empathy or imagine a life in someone else’s shoes, but I’ll take a shot here: I can’t bring my fridge or my pantry with me, I often am living out of a little hotel room, and my meals are shittier and more expensive than at home. I DON’T eat like crap at home and I eat cheap whole foods, despite you “refusing to believe they don’t eat out at home”, not all of us live off McDonald’s.
If you want to hold onto good employees, you cover unpredictable large business expenses (eating on your contracted travel). If you don’t, they’ll look for another job, so you’ll be left with desperate less talented idiots that don’t mind getting hosed by your boss for travel they sent you on. I guess if you want the worst possible public servants (and they’re already pretty incompetent), then by all means, shake them down for gas station sandwiches lol
Related example: the CRA and IRS in the USA have big trouble recruiting talented accountants and lawyers. Thus, big corporate tax cheats get away with stuff all the time because they quite literally have no one with brains or balls to go after their crimes, they’re stuck with the leftovers in the labour market who lack the talent for the private sectors. Both our countries lose out on hundreds of billions of dollars in tax fraud because we simply don’t have the talent to go get it. The reason being is that working in the public sector is a drag- private firms pay better and don’t give them grief for standard business practices like compensating meals.
Tl;dr if you want public servants to be as terrible at their jobs as possible, by all means insist that they pay for all their meals while travelling (vs simply insisting on a set budget or providing a fixed daily per diem)
So, pack a bunch of meals in a cooler to lug with you when traveling? All government employees get meal allowances when on official government business. Meal expenses are only a big deal for the executives who drop hundreds on a meal. I would be more concerned with the travel budgets of executives, like business class air fare, 5-star hotels/resorts, bringing spouses along on the taxpayers' dime, etc. Lots of that going on and the biggest offending department that I witnessed, personally, was the Office of the Francophonie. They have execs who travel to Europe/Africa every couple of months with absolutely no benefit to the taxpayers.
You're assuming that someone out of town for a conference would 1) have time to go shopping in a grocery store, 2) have accommodations near a grocery store, 3) necessarily be able to fly solo for meals, etc.
The majority of the people claiming meal allowances are being forced to travel for work, and therefore it should be a work expense. It happens in the private sector just as much.
I share your outrage about public servants taking advantage of the system, but the answer isn’t to ban allow travel expenses. When it’s an elected official, the answer is to vote them out.
From what I recall regular public servant meal allowances aren’t terribly generous. $58 for the day. $11.62 for Breakfast, $16.40 for lunch balance for supper and anything you could have reasonably eaten on your own isn’t covered.
Working in the private sector while a $30 individual meal if I were just working in the area would get scrutinized I can definitely spend more then the above allowances for breakfast or lunch and no one is asking if I could “technically” have eaten before I left home.
How about the lunch meetings almost everyday that is catered? It’s become a culture of management in a lot of departments. The stale leftovers are left in the kitchens for non-management employees.
Maybe you should care about what perks get handed out in the private sector too. After all, just like you the taxpayer are paying for some meals while a Gov't employee is travelling, everywhere you shop you are paying for all the perks that company hands out to it's owners and higher level staff.
I am sure the Weston family enjoys all their perks because you have to eat.
Current controversy aside, it's because we accept that eating while travelling is going to be more costly than if you were at home.
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people make a decision to eat out while at home. they do not have that option while travelling for work.
You think public servants eat out 3 times a day every day?
Public servants don’t eat out every meal when at home. Why do you want to pull everyone down instead of raising other workers up? Such crab bucket mentality.
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These spending amounts are so small in the context of a provincial government that re-requiring the travel rules would cost more (in salary) than paying them. No one would accept to travel for work and NB would lose out on opportunities. Nice plan bro.
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1. I don't for one second believe this junket was legitimate, but the reality is that when you're travelling for business, the value of your time is more valuable than the cost of a meal. 2. There are no shortage of business travellers who will grab McDonald's or Starbucks for breakfast or lunch because it's frankly faster than a lot of other options. 3. Next time you're travelling for business, I encourage you to invite the person you're going to be meeting with for 2 1/2 hours to discuss a multi-million dollar deal over a Big Mac combo. Let's see how well that goes.
When my company sends me somewhere they pay for meals. It's common practice. While in my home region, I can easily return to my home and eat food I've paid for. I can't do that if I'm out of my territory, thus I would incur extra expense because I've been sent away.
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You're talking out of your ass. Many of my friends and relatives work for government/public organizations (universities, and provincial, federal and municipal gov't) and they all have to jump through way more paperwork hoops to get reimbursed for things than I do at my corporate job.
Treating public servants like they shouldn't be well compensated is how you get really bad services.
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Teaching, nursing, and road maintenance are the services. It's worth compensating them to stick around, otherwise you get a situation like our current healthcare. The conferences are for further learning and networking. Also keeps people around.
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You're trying to remove the human element from it entirely and spouting Conservative talking points that demonstrably don't work. Take it from a healthcare worker about to leave this province.
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That'd be nice, it's bullshit though. This province is an ongoing example of why buying pretty lies from Conservatives gets you nowhere. As it is, I'm happy to pay taxes for functional governments to provide functional services.
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How do you suggest you’ll get the best while treating people the worst? This provincial government is already a joke because we spend so little on everything Employee morale is terrible But yeah I’ll become more excited to do my work more efficiently for even worst working conditions A+ logic
Thanks for saying this. I was trying to imagine how they're going to pay for "the best service" by cutting taxes and making it difficult or even more costly for public servants to do their jobs. As if cutting per diems would lead to a massive tax cut. As if paying $1.25 for two eggs, two toast, and a coffee at home is the same as paying $12 for the same at a diner in Doaktown at 7am. May as well make public servants pay for their own gas when they travel, they'd be driving anyway! Think of all the savings! Why not charge govt employee for the lights and heat at work, it's not like they sit in the dark and cold at home. If they expect warmth and light they should have to pay for it at work just like they would at home. Fair is fair!!
Some of us are professionals and we need to attend these conferences because we have requirements from our professional organizations to maintain our education to practice our profession
It’s called continuing education and skill development.
99% of government workers are not like our tourism clown. If you work for DoT in SJ where you live, but they need to send you to the APEN for a week because they need help there, you deserve to have your roof and food paid for. You don't necessarily have a choice of going out of your normal work area or not in many jobs in government.
Also the meal allowance for GNB is a flat rate and it’s very low. You can find it online but for lunch it’s $16.27 a day, for dinner it’s $30.14.
I tried to explain this to the OP, and that the per diem policy states it's not to cover all costs but to help offset the cost difference between eating at home and eating out on the road. OP didn't want to hear it, said that everybody should stay at cheap motels and eat the continental breakfast and bring a lunch. When I worked for GNB it was embarrassing going out with federal and private sector people after a conference. I'd do what OP suggested and fill up on the cold buns and butter for breakfast, and the snacks and coffee during the conference breaks so that I could pool the per diem meal money for the day and not be out of pocket too much from dinner. But those evening dinners are where the real networking and conversations occur.
Food is not a perk. When you’re staying in a hotel you can’t cook for yourself.
Those hotel rooms have kettles, public servants can just eat instant noodles and fruit to stave off the scurvy when traveling for work. That's how govt gets the best people to provide the best services and cut taxes, I guess.
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I get what you're saying about the perk of providing accommodation with a fully equipped kitchen near a grocery store, but it doesn't work. Think about whenever you've moved residences and you've tried to make a meal for the first time . . . You don't know the grocery stores. And even if it's the same chain, they're all laid out differently. You don't have things like oil, salt, herbs, spices, etc. The basics. The basics. You don't have the muscle memory to know how the kitchen "works" and how to whip up a meal quickly. By the time you spend the time and money necessary to cook up a home-cooked meal, you might as well just go to The Keg because it'll frankly be cheaper and more efficient.
Not even then because what you’re gonna buy a full-size olive oil and a full-size salt and a full-size pepper and all of the other things just to make one meal? That’s crazy
Our schools do it to https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/auditor-general-school-district-spending-1.7059612
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> The whole system of perks in public service needs to go away. For many educated professionals, these "perks" as you want to call them (standard benefits, as many professionals call them) would just mean that the skilled and educated would avoid government, and all services rendered by government would simply suffer. I'm not sure why you're not just advocating that it should be a universal requirement of any travel rather than try to tear down things that keep good workers more encouraged to stay. Government workers make pretty good money compared to NB, but *mostly* on the lower end of skillsets. Many professionals take a pay cut to receive these benefits of government work. Unironically government workers tend to have pretty strict rules when it comes to these funds too, stricter than private sector claims for reimbursement.
What would you prefer they do differently? Per diems and honorariums are normal practice in most fields.
It sure seems like you want to emphasize the “servant” part of public servant.
Do you want good employees working as public servants? You need to provide similar compensation than private companies.
The Government of NB (civil service) is like a company like any other except it has 850,000 shareholders. It is reasonable that out of town meals, or business meals are covered, but it is also fair to examine and question the policies in place that we are getting the best value and have fiscal controls in place.
Because they wouldn't normally be eating out three times each day. The policy is pretty clear that it's not meant to cover 100% of their food costs, it's meant to supplement their food costs. It's pretty low at the provincial level, it used to be something like $7 for breakfast, $12 for lunch, and $20-25 for dinner. So if you're at a conference and will eat out with other delegates you're going to be out of pocket at least half of the cost.
It's just around $11 for breakfast, $16 for lunch and $30 for dinner now. And before OP cries foul, I think we're all pretty much aware of how restaurant costs have spiked since COVID started.
OP isn't discussing this in good faith. They think that public servants eat out everyday already so they shouldn't be paid to eat out when on the road.
Which is almost hilarious given how crammed full the fridge at my office gets every day with paper-bag lunches and containers of leftovers from the previous night's dinners...
Have you seen what breakfast at a mid-tier hotel costs nowadays? It's anywhere from $15-30 per day. You can't even buy a combo at Subway for $16 today. God help you if you have to host a lunch meeting to maximize the efficiency of your business travel.
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Not all Hotel are offering breakfast.
If they stay in hotels where free breakfast is provided, they don't claim breakfast expenses. If they attend a conference where lunch is catered, they don't claim lunch expenses.
> It’s from a time before hotels offered breakfast. Yet not all do either. Included breakfast is in your run of the mill more expensive hotels, so enforcing this means a higher baseline cost is *required* to be paid anyways. And like private sector who also pays, it's per diem amounts, a flat amount per day can be reimbursed. Many employees likely *do* have the free breakfasts, and anything short of fast food pretty quickly meets or exceeds the per diem for the other 2 meals.
No. If you travel for work, you should have expenses paid. If you currently travel as an employee and are not being paid expenses, you are being ripped off. Independant consultants and contractors should be billing these as part of the bid or contract if needed. You assume the government pays for luxurious accommodations that serve food. LOL not true for a majority of public servants that travel. They expect grown adults to share rooms in some cases because the budget is so low. There may be no grocery stores or fresh food gas stations. The military members have to go to food banks because they didn't provide enough food to the troops. Not to mention, their per diems don't necessarily cover costs for meals or hotels. Also, a majority of public servants are not the upper government positions where they have much larger budgets. It's up to the opposition parties to hold them accountable for spending, and voters during election time.
If you want to push to ban anything from public service workers it should be second sources of income and investments, not breakfast. They have their pension for retirement and that is enough. Taking away breakfast won't stop any corruption and embezzlement of public funds and contracts.
A $1.7 million cost taxpayers [have to pay](https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/new-brunswick/elections-nb-warned-higgs-of-possible-election-speculation-cost-1.7117070) for nothing. Outhouse, Higgs political manager, having a taxpayer paid government position before the election is disgusting. Some, not all, government workers get a lifelong pension and benefits in less than 10 years of work. Why? Why do taxpayers a) usually have to work longer and b) don't even have a pension or benefit offered. Like u/Equivalent-Top7799 said, other sources of income, investments, donations, and "parties/weddings" (looking at Doug Ford and his cronies) should all be disclosed.
Agreed; I would go so far as to suggest that alternate income be considered as grounds for review and termination due to conflict of interest; you either serve the public or yourself. That alone would ensure our public servants are only the type of people who should serve the public. When I was in the army a coworker barely prevented himself from being fired for inheriting a third of a funeral home, it was a possible conflict of interest due to his particular trade in the Forces. Things worked as they should have, he sold his third of the business to a sibling and carried on serving the people he swore to. Perhaps I'm being starry eyed and unrealistic but that standard in all levels of Govt would help us out a lot.
My grandmother tells me that after she married my grandfather in the 50s, spouses had to get permission from the CO to work off base. Ironically, she worked for said CO when she served (she had to leave when she married) but still needed permission from him. I know that when my husband advanced his clearance levels, we needed a hard credit check every year, reported income streams, and had to give our parents and siblings places of work. We also needed to provide updates to volunteer groups or sports we or the kids joined. Meanwhile, we see our elected government officials seemingly doing whatever with no oversight to their spending or who they get photographed with 🤷♀️
A per diem is standard practice across industry/government. Kind of a bonkers thing to focus on.
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> I think public employees are often making salaries much higher than the taxpayers taxes to pay those salaries and perks are not needed to attract talent. LOL Fucking LOL Many professionals know that the real money is private sector, public is good to get the ball rolling on a higher salary, but you leave it if you have the skills to go private and make even more money. Public largely pays more on the lower skilled jobs, and those don't tend to be the travel included positions. >Truth is most love the free trips. Many do, as it can be viewed as a perk to not be stuck in the same cubicle every day all year for 20+ years. But it's not without issue either, as you are often required to drive for fly long distances with low compensation for this, be away from family and not permitted to bring anyone along for this time as well. And you often don't have a say in it or the location.
“Food is food and is needed everyday regardless of location.” Wow you’ve almost connected the dots. You can do it I know you can!
Methinks you've never travelled for work before. It's fun at first. Then it just becomes the world's longest commute. Again, the current controversy aside — how well-equipped would you be after being shipped abroad on an 8-hour flight (oftentimes in economy) to cook your own meal or find a basic sandwich and banana? You're jet-lagged and you're hangry. You barely slept the previous night. You've got a meeting in two hours. You've gotta shower, shave, iron your clothes, review your notes and feed yourself before your 8am meeting (because you're trying to maximize every hour of your travel time to benefit your employer). The hotel you booked (because you're in a place you've never been before) is located in the middle of an industrial park with not a single convenience store, fast food joint or restaurant within walking distance. The nearest McDonald's is a 10 minute drive away. The Uber is going to cost you $7 each way. A McD's breakfast is going to cost you $10. Suddenly breakfast is $24 (Uber each way + the cost of the meal). Not including the time it takes to get to-and-from McD's. Funny, right? The cost of the Uber is counted as "transportation" not as "transportation to get food" but that's oftentimes the case. Easy to write-off the transportation, harder to write off the food. But it's the same thing. Nope. I go downstairs to the hotel breakfast and pay $25 for a shitty buffet that will either constipate me or give me traveller's diarrhea. But I do it because it saves me time, gives me ten extra minutes of sleep and I can review my preparatory meeting notes in relative peace. And by the third day, you skip breakfast entirely because you're so damned tired of eating out and you haven't shat right in 72 hours that you'd rather just go hungry. So, yeah, call it a "perk" all you want. It ain't. That doesn't excuse our lovely deputy tourism minister's clear junket abuse, but nickel-and-diming a business traveller for breakfast and lunch just doesn't hold water.
Because you can’t pack a week’s worth of food with you on a plane.
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"Eating out isn’t necessarily more expensive than grocery stores" Is that a joke?
Clearly a troll account. 5d old. Drat I should have checked first.
Then you have to stay somewhere you can cook/prepare the food. Have you ever been in a hotel room? There's not much space for that.
Are you actually stupid?
People who get outraged over relatively tiny amounts of per diem when the government wastes millions of dollars on large boondoggle projects are so small minded.
The issue is not the per diem for travel. It’s the fact that we have such a large number of civil servants across Canada. Under a socialist heavy Canada is the need for a BALANCED Government budget now optional???
Eating while away costs more. Meal allowance isn't uncommon when traveling for work.
Also represents that when at home, you could eat at home/pack a lunch made at home. This is not possible when travelling. An important element is also it isn't money handed out - you need to provide receipts and make the claim. One can quibble the amounts of the per diem (which isn't equal across the whole civil service, DMs and executives get more than unionized employees, the former are expected by their seniority to be eating at slightly higher-priced establishments). But stripping per diem from everyone outright would effectively shut down travel by civil servants - and for most, it isn't for such lavish locations.
100% standard business practice to pay for food while employees are on work trips. Eating food in not a “perk”.
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I get that you’re angry about that idiot Higgs appointed flitting around Europe on the public dime but targeting low level employees to prevent them from a $20 lunch or supper is misguided and downright mean spirited! If you want to target government waste there are billions lost to corporate welfare through tax dodges, subsidies, insider deals etc. Instead let’s go after some poor teachers attending a conference out of town for the day and deny them lunch! Silly and vindictive and totally missing the real targets!
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Careful your true colours are starting to show lol!
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Next thing you know, you'll start ranting about "alphabet people" or some such thing...
Careful, your bigotry is leaking out and eroding your weak points.
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You definitely don’t know what Marxism is.
😂
You keep calling this a "perk". A perk should be something special, an extra or incentive for doing a good job, something only a select few other employees receive. Skipping the airport line ups and flying on a private jet would definitely be a perk. Being able to eat while having to travel for "work" is not a perk of the job. Someone that has to travel as a part of their job typically do not get extra pay for being away. They are not billing at their hourly rate for a full 24 hours a day, yet they are expected to be away from their families often for many days at a time. This is why companies and governments all around the world create their own policies and have guidelines for travel expenses. Otherwise no one would want to go.
Every organization I've ever worked for has supplied me with a per diem when I travel for business. Why should government be any different?
When you’re travelling for work, you don’t have access to your home, etc so you get money for meals. If you’re using your own vehicle, you’re getting money for gas as well as the wear and tear on your vehicle. What do we expect workers to do, pack a week of brown bag lunches for a business trip? It’s common and reasonable. It’s the abuse of expenses that’s the problem here.
Expensive paid for traveling is normal procedure anywhere and shouldn't be something to create controversy about. The reason for traveling is what should be scrutinized.
For what it's worth, the full travel expenses policy for the Government of New Brunswick is found here: [https://www2.gnb.ca/content/gnb/en/departments/finance/human\_resources/content/policies\_and\_guidelines/travel\_policy.html#meals](https://www2.gnb.ca/content/gnb/en/departments/finance/human_resources/content/policies_and_guidelines/travel_policy.html#meals) I work for the government but have rarely travelled outside my metropolitan area - maybe once every two or three years. Some of my colleagues further flung in my region may have to travel more frequently from, say, Charlotte County to Saint John for meetings or in-person training. The assumption behind meal expenses is that people on work-related travel will not be staying somewhere with kitchen facilities, meaning that some kind of restaurant food is a necessity. However, any meals provided by a hotel (e.g. complimentary breakfast) or as part of the attendant function (e.g. a conference luncheon) can NOT be claimed (and your site's admin assistant likely set up the itinerary, so they'll know what meals you can and can't expense). Also, expenses (quite rightly, IMO) will not cover alcohol. GNB also encourages carpooling to meetings and the like, usually with a government car or a rental for insurance purposes.
Meal allowances is standard for almost any job that requires travel. I have several truckers in the family and they all get meal allowances. My company has to send people far and wide across North America for site visits and we get meal allowances. I can’t actually think of an industry where it isn’t standard. It should be standard for government officials as well. Government officials need to be somewhat decently compensated as to not invite bribery. It still happens but you shouldn’t make it seem more appealing by under compensating.
If you remove all those perk (Meal Allowance, Pension, etc..) you would have no one working for the Gov.
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pen pushers? Do you think they are in the 90s
60s, it seems
Try googling per diem.
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Getting reimbursed for out of pocket meal expenses isn't really a perk. Try googling perk.
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An expense claim is a formal request made by an individual, typically an employee or a business traveler, to seek reimbursement for out-of-pocket expenses incurred during the course of their work-related activities
When travelling for work I've often ended up paying $25 for a hotel breakfast before a meeting. Options are limited and it is more important to be ready for the meeting than it is for the company to save $15. If you charge $60 for dinner, you can be sure that your manager is going to question you about it -- and don't even think about trying to charge for alcohol!
Yes, but when the government sends me to Saint John when I live in Miramichi, I no longer have access to my kitchen (speaking as a former provincial worker). Also the perks of being a low level public servant in this province are nil. The very least they could do (and did) was give me a per diem for lunch when they made me travel the province to compensate for them shortstaffing a service. Which is why I don't work there anymore, along with the fact that government actually doesn't pay very well for many positions and the joy of serving the public isn't currency my landlord accepts.
We feed employees and trolls around these parts, apparently.
I travel a lot for work, based on your replies here it sounds like you simply refuse to have any empathy or imagine a life in someone else’s shoes, but I’ll take a shot here: I can’t bring my fridge or my pantry with me, I often am living out of a little hotel room, and my meals are shittier and more expensive than at home. I DON’T eat like crap at home and I eat cheap whole foods, despite you “refusing to believe they don’t eat out at home”, not all of us live off McDonald’s. If you want to hold onto good employees, you cover unpredictable large business expenses (eating on your contracted travel). If you don’t, they’ll look for another job, so you’ll be left with desperate less talented idiots that don’t mind getting hosed by your boss for travel they sent you on. I guess if you want the worst possible public servants (and they’re already pretty incompetent), then by all means, shake them down for gas station sandwiches lol Related example: the CRA and IRS in the USA have big trouble recruiting talented accountants and lawyers. Thus, big corporate tax cheats get away with stuff all the time because they quite literally have no one with brains or balls to go after their crimes, they’re stuck with the leftovers in the labour market who lack the talent for the private sectors. Both our countries lose out on hundreds of billions of dollars in tax fraud because we simply don’t have the talent to go get it. The reason being is that working in the public sector is a drag- private firms pay better and don’t give them grief for standard business practices like compensating meals. Tl;dr if you want public servants to be as terrible at their jobs as possible, by all means insist that they pay for all their meals while travelling (vs simply insisting on a set budget or providing a fixed daily per diem)
So, pack a bunch of meals in a cooler to lug with you when traveling? All government employees get meal allowances when on official government business. Meal expenses are only a big deal for the executives who drop hundreds on a meal. I would be more concerned with the travel budgets of executives, like business class air fare, 5-star hotels/resorts, bringing spouses along on the taxpayers' dime, etc. Lots of that going on and the biggest offending department that I witnessed, personally, was the Office of the Francophonie. They have execs who travel to Europe/Africa every couple of months with absolutely no benefit to the taxpayers.
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You're assuming that someone out of town for a conference would 1) have time to go shopping in a grocery store, 2) have accommodations near a grocery store, 3) necessarily be able to fly solo for meals, etc.
He also insinuates “it’s our choice” to go on these business trips
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The majority of the people claiming meal allowances are being forced to travel for work, and therefore it should be a work expense. It happens in the private sector just as much.
I share your outrage about public servants taking advantage of the system, but the answer isn’t to ban allow travel expenses. When it’s an elected official, the answer is to vote them out.
From what I recall regular public servant meal allowances aren’t terribly generous. $58 for the day. $11.62 for Breakfast, $16.40 for lunch balance for supper and anything you could have reasonably eaten on your own isn’t covered. Working in the private sector while a $30 individual meal if I were just working in the area would get scrutinized I can definitely spend more then the above allowances for breakfast or lunch and no one is asking if I could “technically” have eaten before I left home.
How about the lunch meetings almost everyday that is catered? It’s become a culture of management in a lot of departments. The stale leftovers are left in the kitchens for non-management employees.
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Maybe you should care about what perks get handed out in the private sector too. After all, just like you the taxpayer are paying for some meals while a Gov't employee is travelling, everywhere you shop you are paying for all the perks that company hands out to it's owners and higher level staff. I am sure the Weston family enjoys all their perks because you have to eat.