{"id":92793,"date":"2024-12-06T03:00:09","date_gmt":"2024-12-06T08:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=92793"},"modified":"2025-06-29T11:43:29","modified_gmt":"2025-06-29T15:43:29","slug":"liberal-cabinet-minister-accepts-free-taylor-swift-tickets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2024\/12\/06\/liberal-cabinet-minister-accepts-free-taylor-swift-tickets\/","title":{"rendered":"Liberal cabinet minister accepts “free” Taylor Swift tickets"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’ve often joked that it isn’t surprising that politicians can be bought … what is<\/em> surprising is just how little it can take. This situation<\/a> isn’t quite as clear-cut as that, but it looks bad to everyone except Liberal Party insiders:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Former Canadian Defence Minister Harjit Sajjan in happier times (yeah, it’s the only picture I have of the minister).<\/p><\/div>\n

On Tuesday we learned that<\/a> federal Liberal cabinet minister Harjit Sajjan will be attending a Taylor Swift concert at BC Place in Vancouver, in a private suite, courtesy of PavCo, the Crown corporation that operates the stadium. The federal government partially funds PavCo, including $116 million earlier this year<\/a> for improvements to the stadium in advance of the 2026 World Cup.<\/p>\n

It’s a textbook conflict of interest. Open and shut. Dead to rights. So much for Sajjan’s political career. Only … not. The only people who seem to disagree that it’s a conflict are federal Liberals and, sorry to say, the office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner \u2014 because Sajjan donated $1,500 to a food bank as a gesture to compensate for the coveted opportunity.<\/p>\n

“If an item is paid for through a charitable donation, then it would not be considered a gift,” a spokesperson for the commissioner said in response to questions from National Post<\/em>. “In the case of Minister Sajjan, for example, the original market value of a ticket to a Taylor Swift concert in Vancouver was roughly $600.”<\/p>\n

Where do we even begin with this nonsense?<\/p>\n

PavCo offered private-box seats to various dignitaries on the understanding they would donate some appropriate amount of money to good causes. Sajjan says he’s proud to have participated.<\/p>\n

But you can’t “pay for” a free concert ticket \u2014 to use the commissioner spokesperson’s term \u2014 by giving money to a food bank. That’s like The Keg offering you a free dinner so long as you pay for it at Montana’s … except food-bank donations, unlike steak dinners, come with tax receipts.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’ve often joked that it isn’t surprising that politicians can be bought … what is surprising is just how little it can take. This situation isn’t quite as clear-cut as that, but it looks bad to everyone except Liberal Party insiders: On Tuesday we learned that federal Liberal cabinet minister Harjit Sajjan will be attending […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,28,53],"tags":[491,1596,271,908,200,490],"class_list":["post-92793","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cancon","category-media","category-politics","tag-bc","tag-conflictofinterest","tag-ethics","tag-liberalparty","tag-music","tag-vancouver"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-o8F","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92793","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92793"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92793\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":92794,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92793\/revisions\/92794"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}