Mayor Katz recently indicated he wants the city to come up with a policy on freebie tickets that are offered to members of council.

The move of course was triggered after the recent flap over Manitoba’s crown corporations negotiating Jets tickets as part of advertising deals.

A big part of why the issue is in the news comes from some freedom of information requests I made back at the end of February on Jets tickets. At the time I looked into each crown corporation as they advertise a ton at the arena and was told by a whistle blower that she believed Workers Comp may have purchased a box (that later turned out to be false.)

When I filed information requests with each crown, I didn’t even think of filing one with the city. After all, they don’t have any crown corporations and I couldn’t believe city hall would dream of purchasing season tickets; and they didn’t.

However, now that this issue has unfolded, and the Mayor is pushing for a council policy on freebie tickets, I can definitely see why it’s a good idea.

Six years ago, when I was an employee at city hall, Grey Cup tickets were handed out like water. As far as I understand, city hall received upwards of 200 complimentary tickets as a thank you for sponsoring the CFL event. 

Politicians across the political spectrum and city employees, myself included, were handed tickets to the big game. I was surprised that everyone and their dog seemed to get them.

It’s not quite the same as the situation as we’re seeing with Manitoba’s crowns. After all, the latter negotiated free tickets in exchange for advertising. But it clearly wasn’t the best approach for distributing the tickets.

Just like the provincial situation today, six years ago there wasn’t a policy in place for dealing with the freebies at city hall.

Grey Cups don’t come to Winnipeg very often, but it’s a good idea for council to develop a policy on this issue. Who knows there could be other events and perks that would apply in the mean time?

Should city hall obtain freebies in the future (like the situation above), they should be given out to charities or sold at face value.

At the very least, the city would be wise to have council members disclose Jets tickets they receive in the future. After all, the resale value of the tickets is often way above the price printed on the ticket itself.

No council member has disclosed any gift worth $250 or more (the city’s threshold for gift disclosure) during the past year, but it’s fair to say opening night tickets and other big Jet nights (Teemu’s return anyone?) were actually worth more than $250 to attend.

Going forward, transparency would allow taxpayers to decide if they felt a councillor’s vote in the future on a zoning issue or some kind of other bid may or may not be swayed by freebies.

UPDATE: According to a source, apparently the province also received upwards of 200 tickets for the Grey Cup as well.