Summary The Disneyland trip was one of many questionable expenses by the Portland Hotel Society highlighted by government auditors, which forced the resignation of the society's senior managers and its board of directors. The government audit highlighted the Disneyland trip, as well as other trips to the United Kingdom and Austria as questionable expenses, and said there were no financial controls in place to ensure the travel was for legitimate business reasons.
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Summary The Disneyland trip was one of many questionable expenses by the Portland Hotel Society highlighted by government auditors, which forced the resignation of the society's senior managers and its board of directors. The government audit highlighted the Disneyland trip, as well as other trips to the United Kingdom and Austria, as questionable expenses, and said there were no financial controls in place to ensure the travel was for legitimate business reasons.
Summary This week on Inside the Ledge we look at the spending scandal at the Portland Hotel Society, NDP MLA Jenny Kwan's trips and the resignation of Alberta Premier Alison Redford. "I'm outraged at the result of the audit," said Dix, whose party quizzed the Liberal government about the issue in question period at the legislature.
Summary VICTORIA -- As the legislature convened Monday for its first sitting after the release of two devastating audits of the Portland Hotel Society, speculation abounded about how the New Democratic Party Opposition would handle the controversy. Outside the house, Coleman dealt with other loose ends regarding the takeover of the society.
Esther Goldman comments on the recent Portland Hotel Society scandal - and she sure is picking sides! www.youtube.com/watc ..
Summary At first glance, the spending scandal at Vancouver's main social service agency is incomprehensible. An employee was reimbursed $5,832 for the cost of a "Danube cruise," with a note on the file that it was a gift for one of the directors. The question is how much she knew about the origin of the funds that paid for the trips.
Summary In the Seinfeldepisode "The Doodle," Jerry's frugal and respectable parents, Helen and Morty, score an all-expenses-paid suite at the Plaza Hotel in Manhattan. On the clock, the PHS works with some of the most desperate and marginalized people in Canada -- and has been much lauded for it.
Summary If Vancouver-Mount Pleasant MLA Jenny Kwan had been doing her job, she would have been the one to expose the Portland Hotel Society scandal, rather than being caught up in it. Ostensibly, the object of the trip was see if the kind of turnstiles and ticket-checkers used on the Underground might work to increase security on Vancouver rapid-transit system.
Mark Townsend from Insite and the Portland Hotel Society explains expenses with Phillip Till on @CKNW AUDIO soundcloud.com/cknwn ..
Summary Shelley Bolton is the manager of East Van Roasters, which operates under the umbrella of the Portland Hotel Society. She maintains her support for the society and the four executives who were ousted from their positions this week over spending concerns.
Summary NDP MLA Jenny Kwan announces Friday, March 21, 2014, that she is taking a leave of absence from her duties as MLA, and reimbursing the Portland Hotel Society $34,922.57 after an audit found questionable use of PHA money to fund private trips.
Summary In an emotional appearance this morning in Vancouver, Kwan said she trusted her husband Dan Small, who was a director with the Portland Hotel Society, when he told her that he had paid for the family's personal expenses when they accompanied him on a business trip to Europe in 2012.
Summary The Portland Hotel Society expense scandal is outrageous. An excerpt: "$5,850.20 was spent on travel to Austria to teach harm reduction practices. Of these expenses, one night was spent in a luxury king size room with a rate of $549 per night."
Summary NDP MLA Jenny Kwan was fighting off tears as she spoke to media Friday morning confirming she took two trips to Europe and Disneyland on the Portland Hotel Society's dime costing roughly $35,000. According to Kwan the trip with Small and her two children broke down as:.
Summary Vancouver MLA Jenny Kwan vowed between sobs Friday to take an unpaid leave and pay back more than $34,000 a safe-injection group spent on her family vacations. Kwan said in a press conference Friday she thought her ex-husband, PHS director Dan Small, had paid for the trips "out of pocket."
Summary Embattled NDP MLA Jenny Kwan said Friday she has repaid nearly $35,000 in questionable vacation expenses to the Portland Hotel Society relating to trips her family took in 2012 after the release of bombshell government audits this week. Citing difficulty getting Portland to verify the amounts linked to her family and in determining whether her husband would repay the money, Kwan said she was doing it herself via a cheque delivered that morning for $34,922.57.
Summary Kwan, the MLA for Vancouver Mount Pleasant, said she trusted her ex-husband, Dan Small, when he told her in 2012 that the trips were not being paid by his employer, the Portland Hotel Society. At the time of the trip, Kwan's then-husband Dan Small was the Portland Hotel Society's director of policy research and funding development.
NDP MLA Jenny Kwan says she is taking an unpaid leave of absence and will repay $34,000 for trips. t.co/MhjBW4aamn
Summary The money was spent on "a very particular thing," or so KPMG's forensic bean counters were told: a bill in the amount of $5,749 for a May 2010 trip to Paris, charged to Mark Townsend's Visa Business Platinum Avion credit card.
Summary Executive director Mark Townsend says the board and management had to make a "stark choice" of whether to resign or have their contracts cut?. Surely to God one would think the money of the Portland Hotel Society would be used for the needy in the DTES.
Summary The B.C. government has released details of a damning audit that shows a non-profit group that looks after some of Canada's poorest citizens spent thousands of dollars on lavish hotels, limousine rides, expensive dinners and even a trip to a Disney resort.
Summary NDP MLA Jenny Kwan is seen at a Vancouver press conference on Nov. 27, 2009. A $2,600 trip for two adults and two children to the Disney resort in Anaheim, Calif., was singled out in the audit, along with several other trips to destinations including Paris and Vienna.
Summary NDP MLA Jenny Kwan was quick to admit that she took at least two family trips with her former husband that may have been paid for through Portland Hotel Society funds. Lake said the government had negotiated an agreement with the society for its four managers to step aside by the end of the month and that the new board had taken over on Thursday.
Summary The trip was one of several questionable expenses uncovered in a government audit of the society. In a statement, Kwan said she was concerned to discover the type of expenses charged by previous directors of the society, including the Disneyland trip.
Summary There's just so much that jumps out at you that's egregious, hilariously improbable and, in the context of a social welfare agency the efforts of which should be entirely concentrated on the poor and marginalized, obscene. The audit and financial review of the Portland Housing Society by Vancouver Coastal Health and BC Housing make for the best reading of the year, if you like horror stories.
Summary Marc Townsend, manager of the Portland Hotel Society, enters Insite, Canada's only safe injection site for intravenous drug addicts in Vancouver, Tuesday, October 2, 2007. Lake said the government had negotiated an agreement with the society for its four managers to step aside by the end of the month and that the new board had taken over on Thursday.
Summary Marc Townsend, manager of the Portland Hotel Society, enters Insite, Canada's only safe injection site for intravenous drug addicts in Vancouver, Tuesday, October 2, 2007. Lake said the government had negotiated an agreement with the society for its four managers to step aside by the end of the month and that the new board had taken over on Thursday.
Summary Two audits into the spending of Portland Hotel Society's ousted leadership tell a tale of lavish excess. Co-executive directors Mark Townsend, Liz Evans and the entire PHS board, chose to resign earlier this week, clearing the way for a new board to take over and ensuring the continuation of PHS's many programs and services.
Summary Matt Kieltyka/Metro MLA Jenny Kwan speaks at a media conference in Vancouver yesterday ahead of the Amanda Zhao murder trail in China. In a statement, Kwan says she and her two children joined her husband, an executive of the Portland Hotel Society, on two trips in 2012.
Summary Two audits, conducted by the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority and B.C. Housing, paint a picture of lavish expenses for Portland Hotel Society managers and directors, at a time when the society - charged with operating many services for the Downtown Eastside's at-risk population - is teetering on the verge of financial trouble and potentially unable to pay its debts.
Summary One of the most unpleasant interviews I have endured in four decades of journalism was a few years back with Mark Townsend. In 2007, when the federal government withdrew funding for Insite, the supervised injection site, the PHS filed suit to keep it open and won the case that eventually went all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada.
Summary Minister Rich Coleman told reporters an independent audit of Portland Hotel Society's accounting found red flags and said receivership is an option for the non-profit society. The audit raised concerns about how the society manages the money it receives for its 17 government contracts.
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