NDP's Jenny Kwan promises to repay almost $35,000 in trips charged to Vancouver charity

Politician's family vacation to Disneyland funded by Vancouver charity

BY ROB SHAW, VANCOUVER SUN MARCH 21, 2014

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. Kwan was married to PHA senior executive Dan Small when the money was spent.

Photograph by: Jason Payne , PNG

VICTORIA – Embattled NDP MLA Jenny Kwan said she will repay $34,922 for trips charged to a Vancouver charity, and will take an unpaid leave of absence from her job.

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.

“He assured me the expenses were paid by him,” she said, during an emotional press conference in which she broke down in tears several times.

“I can’t tell you how upsetting this is and how sorry I am.”

The trips charged to the PHS include a $2,695 trip to Disneyland, as well as more than $8,323 to the United Kingdom, $3,175 to Bristol, $5,950 in flights, $4,143 in transportation, $10,636 to Vienna and the Disney expenses.

“Even though I don’t have all the information about the expenses I’m going to take responsibility for them and pay for them,” she said.

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.

Small and the society’s senior managers were forced out of their jobs in the wake of two scathing government audits into alleged financial mismanagement on Thursday.

Kwan and Small have since separated and are seeking a divorce, she said.

Kwan said she will be taking an unpaid leave of absence from her job as MLA but is not considering resigning from the job.