Justin Trudeau has acquired a well-deserved reputation for extravagant spending. He has literally thrown billions of dollars to his favourite people, which includes himself.
This characteristic showed up when he first became Prime Minister in 2015. Despite his annual $357,800 salary and a private family inheritance, he insisted that the Canadian taxpayer foot the bill of two nannies to care for his children. Deputy Prime Minister, Chrystia Freeland’s three children however, were cared for by family (her aunts), while she was busy saving the world. (Freeland’s husband lives and works in New York). Apparently, neither Trudeau nor Freeland, during their children’s formative years, wanted them to mingle with the children of the common folk in a daycare centre. Instead, they made other arrangements for their children and, in Trudeau’s case, at taxpayers’ expense, yet they enthusiastically endorse other mothers putting their children in daycare centres as soon as possible.
Travelling in Canada at Taxpayers’ Expense
In the past year, between January 2021 and April 2022, Trudeau travelled 127,141 kilometres (equivalent to about three trips around the world), flying domestically on government aircraft. Most of the flying time was used to promote Liberal policies and the April 2022 budget. It also included two family trips – one to Tofino, B.C. on September 30, 2021 to walk on the beach and water ski on Canada’s first ever National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. Trudeau’s official itinerary for that day listed him as attending “private meetings” in Ottawa. Another family trip took place during the Easter holidays this year when the family visited Whistler, B.C.
The Trudeau family’s Christmas excursion, in December 2016, at the Aga Khan’s private estate in the Bahamas has recently become an issue again. The Aga Khan Foundation has been allocated over $243 million dollars from the federal government since 2015. The Ethics Commissioner declared that the trip to the Aga Khan’s estate, therefore, was a breach of ethics.
The Conservative Party recently received documentation on this trip under the Access to Information Act that stated the RCMP believed that Trudeau’s family trip was “on reasonable grounds” to constitute fraud. The RCMP decided not to proceed with charges, however, because it was not clear whether Trudeau had the power, under the Ethics Act, to grant himself the authority, i.e. to provide consent for himself to take the trip paid by a private donor.
One wonders why Trudeau thinks that his family needs holidays so urgently, when he has access to the Prime Minister’s official country home on Harrington Lake in Gatineau, Quebec. The latter recently underwent an $11 million renovation, which included a new kitchen, laundry and pantry facilities which alone cost $735,000, and renovations to the guesthouse and caretaker’s cottage, among other extensive updates.
The country retreat is owned and operated by the National Capital Commission (NCC), but Trudeau was consulted about these spectacular renovations. Relaxing in such splendour should satisfy most individuals, but apparently not Justin Trudeau.
Travelling Abroad at Taxpayers’ Expense
In addition to domestic trips, Trudeau also bounded off, in March 2022, on government aircraft to photo opportunities in Europe, in an attempt to recover some of his faded lustre following the declaration of the disastrous Emergencies Act. Unfortunately, Trudeau is regarded in international circles as a fool and a fop, and officials find it difficult to engage in serious discussions with him. Nevertheless, Trudeau was still diligently photographed (by his personal photographer), maskless, meeting the Queen of England at Windsor Castle, in discussions with NATO officials, and addressing the European Union parliament (EU), where he was roundly criticized by some of its members for his hypocrisy in declaring the importance of democracy in other countries, when he, himself, dismantled a peaceful protest convoy in Ottawa.
Meanwhile, Canadians are told about a looming climate crisis, which requires the imposition of a carbon tax at a time when the inflation rate is 6.7%. According to the Bank of Canada, the inflation rate means that each of us will be paying an additional $2,000 a year. Inflation soared to 6.7% in March, the highest in 30 years, and driven by a 40% increase in gas prices. The cost to the taxpayer for Trudeau’s expensive travels, however, appears to be of no concern to him.