There are calls for an investigation into the use of restaurant gift cards by the City of Richmond.
Documents obtained by Global News through the freedom of information requests indicate about $498,000 was spent on the cards over three years. Minus possible duplicates, it’s about $445,000.
Richmond had previously indicated that gift cards cost taxpayers $32,800 in 2022, $71,550 in and $71,300 in 2024. The FOI results indicate much larger numbers. $156,000 in 2022, $218,000 in 2023 and $124,000 in 2024.
“There needs to be a full investigation into how this happened and the best way to do that is for the provincial government to reappoint the auditor general for local government so there’s a watchdog standing by to investigate boondoggles like this,” Canadian Taxpayers Federation B.C. director Carson Binda said.
On Thursday BC’s former auditor general for local government, Gordon Ruth, weighed in on the questionable program.
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“These are the kinds of things that would actually fall under the mandate of an auditor general,” he said. “Local governments in British Columbia no longer have that extra level of transparency.”
Richmond claims most cards were for employee service awards, retirement or volunteer recognition.
But one employee, who we agreed not to identify, told us many were kept in a bowl.
Others were allegedly handed out for no particular reason.
“Why are we getting these?” he told Global News. “We are very well paid to do our jobs and we’re not a private organization so these are all tax dollars.”
The employee also said that in order to receive gift cards, some employees had to perform and that nothing was written down to account for how they were distributed.
The city responded that “multiple records exist for the same transaction. As a result, we have been unable to verify your numbers.”
The numbers contained in the FOI came from Richmond.
“It’s especially unacceptable when you’re raising taxes at the same time,” Binda said.
“City of Richmond homeowners are being hit with a 6 percent tax hike in 2025.”
Richmond says that now the gift cards are “only permitted for long service retirement and volunteer service.”
Richmond Mayor Malcolm Brodie has declined to comment.
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