In December Mayor Patrick Johnstone was approached by a ‘third party organization’ and offered a free trip to Dubai, UAE, to discuss climate change with other politicians and environmentalists. The COP28 conference attracted over 90,000 in-person delegates and 3000 individuals who attended online – and carbon free.
NWP City Councillors Daniel Fontaine and Paul Minhas found out about the Mayor representing the City of New Westminster at this event via the Mayor’s personal Instagram page where he posted a few pictures of himself in Dubai. There was no advance notice to Council of the trip, no request to Council to authorize staff to assist the Mayor to prepare background and briefing materials and no public disclosure on who exactly was funding this trip. Johnstone reports that he was the only Mayor in BC to accept the invitation to attend the Dubai conference.
Now that a couple of weeks have passed since the Mayor has returned to Canada, we are no further ahead at answering some critical questions surrounding how the trip came about and just who exactly is funding it besides a ‘third party organization’. A rushed staff report is coming to Council on Monday, January 8th but it sheds little light on the situation.
According to the A/City Manager the entire trip was coordinated and managed solely out of the Mayor’s Office. Staff also indicate that funding for this trip came from an organization called C40 and the list of funders of that organization can be found here. If you click on the link, you will see the donor names of American and other foreign-based organizations/corporations such as Bloomberg Philanthropies, Foundation L’Oreal, Google, IKEA and many more.
Earlier today NWP Councillors Fontaine and Minhas called upon the Mayor to provide full disclosure regarding who funded the trip, as well as how much it cost – including a full breakdown of expenditures such as hotel, flights and other travel related expenses.
If you want to hear more, listen to the interview conducted by CKNW’s Jill Bennett. Click on the image below.
