International Cooperation Minister Bev Oda is in hot water again.
Two months ago it was discovered that she had abused her expense account at an international conference on poverty in London.
She was to have stayed at the hotel where the conference was taking place, but it didn't have a smoking room and Oda smokes like a chimney.
So instead she went to the most luxurious five-star Savoy Hotel which has a wonderful smoking room but overnight is twice the price.
At the Savoy she was far from the conference, and since "Madame" does not like taxis, she rented a limousine and a driver at $ 1 000 a day.
All this came to the knowledge of Parliament and her boss Stephen Harper informed her she had to reimburse taxpayers for her over-spending.
She apologized in the House of Commons on April 24 and admitted her expenses had been "unacceptable."
She doled out $1,353.81 to cover the difference between the two hotel rooms, including a cancellation fee at the first hotel and even those glasses of orange juice at $ 16 a glass that she liked so much at the Savoy.
But for Oda, it always goes from bad to worse. The Opposition discovered she had forgotten to refund her limousine costs - another $2, 671.45. In all, Oda had to fork over $ 4,025.26. That makes for a rather expensive smoke.
Worse than that, the MPs poked around some more and discovered that someone had gone and changed her expense accounts for trips to Haiti, Korea and Africa.
Now why would someone do a thing like that?
And now it starts all over again.
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