TORONTO - A Toronto Sun freedom of information request on LCBO chairman Philip Olsson's expenses revealed only one-third of the pricey, booze-filled dinners he hosted for board members, the government-owned liquor monopoly admitted Friday.
Because the Sun requested Olsson's personal expenses, LCBO spokesman Chris Layton explained, expenses he incurred but billed directly to the LCBO were not included in the request.
"There are two ways that they can be paid for and therefore they weren't submitted by Mr. Olsson as a personal expense," Layton said of the undisclosed records, which will now be provided to the Sun at no charge sometime next week.
"There was no attempt to not provide all the records but the records were provided to the request."
Layton said the undisclosed records include expenses for nine "pre-board dinners" held between January 2007 and May 2009, in which Olsson and board members ate expensive meals at the Toronto and Granite clubs while discussing the agenda for the next day's board meeting.
Bills for the six similar dinners that were released show that, along with their meals, board members regularly ordered bottles of champagne and $78 bottles of wine, as well as Crown Royal, Tio Pepe, Calvados and Drambuie during the meetings.
The booze bill alone at the dinners was often more than $50 a head and the average cost overall was more than $1,200.
The other nine dinners came with similar price tags, Layton said.
But it's not entirely clear why all the records weren't provided in the original request -- all of the information the Sun published on Thursday about the pre-board dinners was plainly marked as being paid directly by the LCBO.
In fact, the majority of the more than $12,000 in meals and entertainment expenses provided to the Sun indicate they were paid in this way -- and not incurred as Olsson's personal expenses.
"If anything there may have been an oversight if there's other information that may have been forthcoming," Layton said.
"The whole process is to be open and transparent, and there's no interest in withholding. But it may have been an oversight -- all connected to the nature of expenses that are filed directly."
Alcohol and hospitality can no longer be expensed by board members and executives at most of Ontario's arm's-length agencies, boards and commissions, but the practice was allowed prior to last fall.
Premier Dalton McGuinty banned such expenses after embarrassing disclosures at eHealth Ontario and the Ontario Lottery & Gaming Corp.
jonathan.jenkins@sunmedia.ca
