Recently the Canadian Taxpayers Federation examined environmentalist Tzeporah Berman's expenses from her time on the provincial government's Oil Sands Advisory Group.

The results were surprising.

Recall, Berman’s appointment to the committee last year raised a lot of eyebrows given her outspoken anti-oil sands activism. Critics noted that Berman once compared Alberta’s oil sands to Mordor, the dark, evil land from the movie Lord of the Rings. Berman also said, “if you spend more than a couple hours walking around in the tarsands, your eyes start to run and your skin starts to hurt…”

With those remarks in mind, one has to wonder why the outspoken carbon tax advocate chooses to use oil and gas products so much?

Between July 2016 and May 2017, she expensed seven flights to Edmonton and one to Vancouver for work related to the government committee she served on. Taxpayers paid to fly her from Vancouver to Edmonton, New York to Edmonton and a couple times from Cortes Island; a sparsely populated island off the coast of B.C.

All these flights – fuelled by planes that run on oil products – make one wonder why Berman couldn't have participated in the meetings by conference call or video conference? Those two options would have allowed her to reduce her carbon footprint.

Berman’s unnecessary flights are reminiscent of celebrity "environmentalists" – Leonardo Dicapprio, Jane Fonda and others – who expect the rest of us to cut back on our carbon footprints while they fly around the world for meetings, vacations and rallies.

Perhaps the most interesting aspect about Berman’s flight bills was the fact that someone was earning Aeroplan points and Westjet frequent flyer points for the trips. We asked the government if it was standard practice to give someone like Berman a government frequent flyer number so that the government could collect the points. We were told it was not.

If indeed it was Berman who was collecting the points, why would an anti-oil activist be collecting points to use a service that is so heavily dependent on oil?

It wasn’t just the flights during Berman's time on the government committee that raised our eyebrows, it seems she also prefers to use taxis to get around rather than public transit. We discovered over 20 receipts for taxis in her expense records but we didn’t see a single one for public transit.

Perhaps she may have decided to not put in an for expense for a $2 bus ticket or $3 train ride, but the question remains – why would she use taxis so frequently when she could have used public transit (a form of transportation that tends to have a lower carbon footprint)? Edmonton and Vancouver aren’t exactly rural communities lacking in public transit.

Under normal circumstances, Berman’s expenses probably wouldn’t raise any red flags. However, when an outspoken carbon tax advocate decides to choose high carbon emission activities – and expense them to the government – it’s a tough pill to swallow.

One thing should be clear, despite Berman’s disparaging comments about Alberta’s oil sands, she sure seems to like using the oil products that come from them.

This column was published in the Volume 6 Issue 7 edition of Oilfield Pulse