To me this is exactly where it's a witch hunt as opposed to actual public policy. Between the law society dues and flight to South Africa (which was not only questionable, but paid back), we're looking at $49,000. Have a quick look through Klein's track record, or Stelmach. These guys were flying their wives all over the place and no one seemed to have a worry at all. I'm job making a two wrongs make a right argument here though. It just seems that for some reason people are holding Redford to a different standard. I'm not sure why that is really.
If you listen to people (like my wife) she thinks it's gender. When Peter McKay has a helicopter pick him up to go to a lobster boil I think it gets laughed off as a "boys will be boys" sort of thing. Like, yeah, that's a pretty ignorant thing to do, but kind of so ridiculous it's amusing. Redford uses government aircraft to attend a world leaders funeral that she once worked for and people are up in arms. To be honest I never really considered the gender angle because I think it's just wrong, but maybe there is something to it. For the most part these 'transgressions' seem so minor, and maybe we really are far more willing to cut slack to male leaders?
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