A joint statement issued by Tory and Bloc MPs says there are ’serious questions’ to be answered on whether the prime minister’s trip violated ethics laws.
MPs are recalling the ethics committee to probe Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Jamaica vacation, citing concerns about the changing statements from the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) on how the trip was funded.
“Serious questions have been raised over the prime minister’s trip to Jamaica and if it breaks Canada’s ethics law,” reads
a joint statement signed by Conservative MPs Michael Barrett, Jacques Gourde, and Damien Kurek, and Bloc Québécois MP René Villemure. “These questions are rooted in the changing stories the Prime Minister’s Office has provided on who paid for the vacation.”
In the statement shared on the social media platform X, the MPs called on John Brassard, the chair of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy, and Ethics, to recall the committee to commence a parliamentary investigation into the matter “at the earliest opportunity.”
The committee is scheduled to meet this week, Mr. Barrett said in
a Jan. 14 post on X; however, no specific date has been announced.
Mr. Trudeau spent the
post-Christmas holiday with his immediate family in Jamaica from Dec. 26, 2023, to Jan. 4. The “Frankfort Villa” at the Prospect Estate resort, where the Trudeau family stayed, had an estimated commercial value of $9,300 per night during the year-end holidays, totalling $84,000 for the prime minister’s nine-night vacation in the Caribbean country, according to the statement.
The MPs noted that the estimated $84,000 commercial value for the prime minister’s accommodation is higher than Canada’s median household income of $70,332.
“Canadians struggling in a cost of living of crisis that scraped by this holiday season want answers on the prime minister’s vacation, and rightfully so,” the statement reads.
This marks the second time the prime minister took his post-Christmas vacation at this resort.
In March 2022, an Inquiry of Ministry submitted to the House of Commons showed that Mr. Trudeau’s family spent more than $160,000 on the trip from late December 2022 to early January 2023.
Additionally, MPs raised concerns about the PMO’s changing responses regarding the funding of the vacation.
Initially, on Dec. 22, 2023, the PMO said that the Trudeau family would cover vacation expenses. But
on Jan. 4, 2024, the PMO altered its statement, saying the family was vacationing “at no cost at a location owned by family friends.” On Jan. 10, 2024, the latest PMO version stated, “The Prime Minister and his family were staying with family friends at no cost,” according to the statement.
The MPs added that Steven MacKinnon, the recently sworn-in Liberal House Leader, said that the prime minister’s complimentary trip was “pre-approved” by the ethics commissioner. However, the commissioner’s office
later clarified that it does not perform such pre-approval functions. The PMO has denied allegations of misleading the ethics commissioner on this matter.
The Epoch Times reached out to the PMO for comment but didn’t immediately hear back.
