Manitoba NDP MP Niki Ashton has refunded a portion of taxpayers’ money for a Christmas trip she took with her family to Ottawa and Quebec in 2022.
Ashton, who represents Churchill-Keewatinook Aski, a riding that stretches from the Sagkeeng and Peguis First Nations all the way to the northern border of Manitoba with Nunavut, said she gave back a portion of the $17,641.12 she was reimbursed in early 2023.
Nina Amrov, the federal NDP’s deputy director of communications, said Ashton was unavailable for an interview on Tuesday and instead provided a statement from the MP.
Free Press Files
Manitoba NDP MP Niki Ashton.
In the statement, Ashton — who paid back a portion of the expenses following critical media reports detailing how she took her husband and their two children on the trip — did not say how much she gave back. One media outlet has reported the amount she returned was $2,900.
Ashton said the earlier stories have had an effect on herself and her family.
“As a result of media reports around these travel claims, my family and I have been subjected to death threats, harassment and abuse,” Ashton said.
“I have reached out to the House of Commons administration and repaid the expenses incurred in Montreal and Quebec City that the House of Commons had approved. I have done this in order to protect the privacy of the stakeholders I met with and to ensure that they were not subject to similar abuse.”
Ashton said she went with her family, from her riding to Ottawa, initially on Dec. 21, 2022, “to deal with an urgent bedbug situation in my building and apartment following spraying on Dec. 20.”
The family travelled to Quebec City on Dec. 25 for a few days — where Ashton says she “met separately with stakeholders” — and then to Montreal on Dec. 30.
Ashton did not identify the stakeholders in her statement. The federal government’s detailed travel expenditures report only says “to attend meetings with stakeholders about business of the House.”
Media outlets said Ashton posted photographs on social media during the days she was in Quebec, including ones showing the family going to winter attractions in Quebec City as well as the MP skating with her children.
The family returned to Ottawa on Dec. 31, with her husband flying back to Thompson on Jan. 3, 2023, and Ashton and her two children following on Jan. 4.
Overall, Ashton said the media reports about the travel, which she said was approved by the House of Commons, “has become a distraction to the important work New Democrats are doing for Canadians.
“My team and I are focused on delivering support for the people in northern and Indigenous communities who are so often left without the resources they need.”
kevin.rollason@freepress.mb.ca
Kevin Rollason
Reporter
Kevin Rollason is a general assignment reporter at the Free Press. He graduated from Western University with a Masters of Journalism in 1985 and worked at the Winnipeg Sun until 1988, when he joined the Free Press. He has served as the Free Press’s city hall and law courts reporter and has won several awards, including a National Newspaper Award. Read more about Kevin.
Every piece of reporting Kevin produces is reviewed by an editing team before it is posted online or published in print — part of the Free Press‘s tradition, since 1872, of producing reliable independent journalism. Read more about Free Press’s history and mandate, and learn how our newsroom operates.
Our newsroom depends on a growing audience of readers to power our journalism. If you are not a paid reader, please consider becoming a subscriber.
Our newsroom depends on its audience of readers to power our journalism. Thank you for your support.