On Parliament Hill

This week the media reported three new examples of entitled Liberal spending. Not one, three! You’d think that after spending in excess of $137,000 on a lavish private vacation – a mistake Justin Trudeau tried to pin on the RCMP – and receiving $1500 per person to meet with foreign lobbyists, Justin Trudeau would have learned his lesson. Apparently not.

The first revelation is that 14 Crown corporations and Government departments reported spending in excess of $111,000 at the Rideau Club. The Rideau Club is a pricey private club atop a downtown Ottawa skyscraper where lobbyists and the Ottawa elite “wine and dine” MPs and civil servants. A membership costs $2500 a year. Let me tell you, there are many fine places to meet and eat in Ottawa for a whole lot cheaper. Under the previous Conservative Government the popularity of the Rideau Club declined drastically because we ensured there was scrutiny of government spending.

Then, as if he and his colleagues didn’t seem quite elite enough, last month the Prime Minister decided to spend $33,000 on theatre tickets. Justin Trudeau used taxpayer money to purchase 600 tickets for the Broadway musical Come From Away. The musical tells the story of how the small community of Gander, Newfoundland took in travelers stranded by the 911 attacks. Had the PM treated the people of Gander to the show that might have been palatable, but only 8 people from Gander were invited. Who was invited? Executives from BMO, Air Canada, Westjet, Roots, HBC and several major law firms—all of whom, like the PM, can afford to buy their own theatre tickets. The remainder of the tickets were given to UN ambassadors and other foreign officials as part of Mr. Trudeau’s ongoing campaign to buy Canada a seat on the UN Security Council. Mr. Trudeau’s government has already spent in excess of $500,000 in this endeavor – a number that does not include the salaries and expenses of the 10 full time people heading the project. The seat does not open up until 2021. Imagine just how much money Justin Trudeau can spend on a vanity exercise in 3 years?

Speaking of vanity, Justin Trudeau also spent $2000 of taxpayer dollars on 14 life-sized cardboard cutouts – of himself. Why you might ask? As the Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland tried to justify it, they were to help “re-engage with the world, champion Canadian values and engage with our international counterparts.” Needless to say that excuse could be characterized as ‘paper thin’. But then everything this Prime Minister says tends to be pretty ‘one dimensional’. There are a lot of substantive ways that we can champion Canadian values and engage with the world. A flimsier version of an already flimsy Prime minister is not one of them.

Private islands, ritzy clubs, wining and dining diplomats in New York City, staring deep into his own (cardboard) eyes: this is where Justin Trudeau feels at home. He does not know or care about the plight of regular Canadians. Men and women who have had to work hard for what they have. People who have to work harder still to afford to live in Trudeau’s Canada. After all, somebody has to pay for those club fees, theatre tickets and cardboard cutouts and we all know it won’t be Justin Trudeau.