The Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) has launched a petition demanding that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau refund the $6,000 a night bill for the hotel room he stayed in during Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral.
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“Mr. Trudeau should have openly informed taxpayers of the bill from day one. Canadians in a precarious situation should never have been forced to pay for a luxury hotel suite when there were cheaper options,” said Franco Terrazzano, the FCC’s federal director .
In addition, the organization accuses Mr. Trudeau of trying to obscure this information by providing an incomplete response to their request for information. The FCC has also launched a court case with the Office of the Information Commissioner to ask the government to reveal who lived in that $6,000 suite.
“Trudeau knew full well that he would lose in court and be forced to disclose his astronomical expenses to taxpayers, so he’s trying to bury the story even with Biden visiting Ottawa,” said Quebec director Nicolas Gagnon the FCC, which believes the Prime Minister “must compensate the taxpayers”.
Enormous expenses for the governor-general
We learned last Thursday through documents filed in Parliament by the Bloc Québécois that Mary Simon spent almost $700,000 during her first trip as Governor General of Canada, a four-day stay in Germany in October 2021.
The FCC, in a response to the QMI agency, questioned the relevance of Ms. Simon’s travels.
“Not only is it difficult to calculate the true benefit to taxpayers of the governor-general’s trips, but it is all the more questionable that these trips are taking place while a very large number of Canadians are making daily sacrifices to make ends meet.” he said Mr. Gagnon. The latter also thinks that Ottawa should be more “[proactif] in its accounts and publishes its invoices”.