QUESTION PERIOD — Foreign Affairs
Cost of Delegation to the Funeral of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II
March 30, 2023
Leader, to the surprise of absolutely no one in this country, it turns out that the member of Canada’s delegation to Her Majesty’s funeral last September who stayed in the $6,000-a-night hotel room was — you guessed it — Justin Trudeau. This information was not given during any of the times that the Prime Minister was directly asked about this in the other place. It also wasn’t provided through access to information, as his name was redacted from hotel invoices released in February. No, this information was given to the House committee just as Air Force One was touching down in Ottawa last Friday.
Leader, isn’t it embarrassing that the Prime Minister used President Biden’s visit to hide the truth from Canadians?
The answer is no. The specific cost of the room that is referenced includes more than one room, as colleagues would know, and that includes the security who stayed in this set of rooms. This is the Prime Minister of Canada at the Queen’s funeral, and it was necessary for the Prime Minister to have the appropriate security, as you would fully expect.
As always, the government has made every effort in this regard to ensure that the spending on official trips is responsible and transparent.
The answer changes. It was one room; now it’s multiple rooms. Why didn’t the Prime Minister say that months ago, that it was multiple rooms that he had used?
Last fall, leader, I questioned you repeatedly about who had stayed in this $6,000-a-night hotel room. If the Prime Minister had answered the question himself at any point, he would not have had to put you in the position of defending the indefensible, which you again have done a number of times today.
Instead, as I said to you a few weeks ago regarding the foreign interference allegations, no one can get a straight answer out of this man. This is the government that once claimed to have set a higher bar, leader, for openness and transparency. Instead, using the visit of an American President to try to bury this story is probably the lowest of the low in terms of transparency.
Leader, yesterday the Trudeau government claimed that this $6,000 room included rooms for security and that saying otherwise was misinformation — and it took them months to decide that.
How can that explanation be trusted when the Prime Minister has lied on numerous occasions? How can that explanation be trusted when the Prime Minister could have said from the start but chose not to do so? Isn’t that misinformation?
Lastly, leader, as I said yesterday, when will Justin Trudeau realize he has lost the confidence of Canadians, and step down and call a federal election?
The position of the government is that it is here to serve Canadians, is serving Canadians and will continue to serve Canadians so long as it has the confidence of the House.
