OTTAWA — Immigration Minister Joe Volpe was just doing his job when he billed taxpayers nearly $7,000 for restaurant meals during an 11-week period last spring, his spokesman says.

A government website shows Volpe was reimbursed $6,880.70 for 31 meals between March 3 and May 17. Four of his aides paid for another eight meals with him and passed the sum of $4,010.45 on to taxpayers.

Two members of Volpe's staff, including communications director Steven Heckbert, billed taxpayers for different working dinners with him on the same day.

The bill may look excessive, acknowledged Heckbert, but he said the minister has more than one responsibility that requires him to meet with many people.

"He is the Ontario political minister and, as such, he has a variety of meetings that he has with his fellow cabinet colleagues."

Volpe also meets regularly with people interested in Ontario issues and is the federal minister responsible for the Greater Toronto Area, Heckbert said.

With regard to the two meals in one evening, Heckbert billed for a dinner March 21 with Volpe at Ottawa's Carmello's restaurant for $80.14.

Meanwhile, Earl Provost, head of parliamentary affairs for Volpe, was reimbursed for a dinner that night at Allegro, an upscale Ottawa restaurant, for $507.39. The meal was billed as a working dinner with the minister.

Heckbert explained: "He sometimes has two meetings in the same night, in fact, and will go from one to the other as a result of trying to keep himself 120 per cent occupied.

"In this case he was at one event, one dinner, left that dinner to come over to join the other dinner that was already in progress.

"It's one of those things that happens to cabinet ministers. . . . He probably didn't eat very much at the second dinner."

Conservative immigration critic Diane Ablonczy angrily refused to buy that argument, accusing Volpe of cheating the system.

"This is clearly and evidently, to any rational person, huge abuse by a minister who of all ministers should be sending the right message," Ablonczy said.

"This is the same trick that the Liberals always pull. It's called plausible deniability," she added.

"They make up some story that you can't really disprove . . . and so that makes it all right. We shouldn't go for that anymore."

By comparison, Foreign Affairs Minister Pierre Pettigrew billed taxpayers $3,282.80 for eight dinners and a reception during the same reporting period.

Deputy Prime Minister Anne McLellan submitted one of the lowest meal expense claims during the period, for five meals that cost taxpayers $941.10.

Volpe's predecessor, Judy Sgro, reported spending $3,257.48 on 23 meals between Mar. 2 and May 18 last year.

It's time the prime minister has a word or two with Volpe about his expenses, offered John Williamson, president of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.

"When you stack up what he's spending next to his cabinet colleagues, Mr. Volpe's spending is out of line and he should be reined in," said Williamson.

"The double dinner in one night raises all kinds of questions," he added.

"Were there, in fact, two dinners, or was it staffers who are (improperly) billing?"

"That's why we have this reporting mechanism to shine a light on what's going on and to ask additional questions about how appropriate these expenses are."