It utterly astonishes me that Justin Trudeau or someone with an ounce of sway in his office wouldn’t stop this conspicuously consumptive behaviour as a matter of choice
Interim federal Ethics Commissioner Konrad von Finckenstein authored a great moment in Canadian political accountability on Tuesday in explaining to a parliamentary committee when and why he might investigate a very generous gift to the prime minister from a friend. (Gifts from friends are explicitly allowed for in the Conflict of Interest Act.) The gift would have to be “really exceptional,” he suggested, like “a Ferrari,” or “$1 million,” to trigger an investigation.
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You can get two Ferrari 296s for $1 million. Or a Daytona SP3 for around $2.5 million. It’s a very confusing standard.
Not rising to this “exceptional” level, apparently, is the free nine-day vacation in a luxury Jamaican villa the Trudeau clan enjoyed over the Christmas break, with a retail cost of around $84,000, courtesy of family friends who own the estate.
“This is a true friend, who has no relations with the government of Canada,” von Finckenstein told the committee (read: unlike the Aga Khan, whom von Finckenstein’s predecessor Mary Dawson found not to have been a real-enough friend to escape her wrath). “What we have here is clearly a generous gift, but it’s between people who are friends and I don’t see why, just because they’re well off, they can’t exchange gifts.”
Leaving aside what the prime minister is allowed to do with his truly rich true friends, it remains utterly astonishing to me that Justin Trudeau or someone with an ounce of sway in his office wouldn’t put a stop to this conspicuously consumptive behaviour as a matter of choice.
Clearly Canadians don’t care that much about this stuff, or else Trudeau wouldn’t have lasted as long as he has. But I do find it a tad ironic that on a journalist’s salary I’ve paid more to stay at a luxury Jamaican villa — one owned by a friend’s mother, who very generously provided it to friends at cost — than Justin Trudeau has. A butler, a chef, a driver, daily laundry dried in the fragrant Caribbean wind. When you finish one Red Stripe another supernaturally manifests in your hand.
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It’s almost impossible to imagine a future prime minister luxuriating in his birthright lifestyle the way Trudeau does
It’s ludicrously fantastic. I am acutely aware of how lucky I have been to visit such a place (which, now that I look at it, costs considerably less per night than the Trudeau villa). It doesn’t so much offend me to see Trudeau insisting upon such gifts as a right so much as it boggles my mind that any politician would risk appearing so cartoonishly aristocratic. Never mind me with my villa access, what about those poor shlubs at the all-inclusives?
“Free to those who can afford it, very expensive for those who can’t,” as the ultra-class-conscious Brits wryly put it.
Von Finckenstein’s Ferrari standard will put many in mind of tightening the rules, setting specific limits on the nature and value of gifts ministers and PMs can receive — or just outright banning them.
I’m not so sure there’s any particular need. Hard cases make bad law, and it’s almost impossible to imagine a future prime minister luxuriating in his birthright lifestyle the way Trudeau does. In fact, so long as such gifts are disclosed — which the Aga Khan caper might well not have been, had the National Post not been tipped off — I think it’s probably better to let Canadians decide for themselves what they think of their PM’s behaviour when he’s unshackled by hard-and-fast rules.
It’s not as though the ethics commissioner’s findings of guilt have any real effect. There are no tangible consequences for politicians who violate ethics rules. The maximum fine is just $500. Former finance minister Bill Morneau was dinged just $200 for forgetting to disclose his villa in Provence. (I suspect La Villa Oubliée is unavailable to rent at any price.)
Having been busted accepting a lavish gift from the head of a global NGO that receives tens of millions of dollars a year in government funding for its good works around the world, Trudeau clearly had no compunction about his government continuing to fund the Aga Khan Foundation — to the tune of nearly $127 million over the past five years, according to federal charity filings.
And I’m not saying that’s a bad thing: Nobody seems to have much bad to say about the Ismaili spiritual leader or his charitable endeavours. In fact, the worst thing I can think of to say about the guy is that he potentially risked that funding by gifting a luxury vacation to the prime minister and his guests. In a many countries, countries with any kind of collective class consciousness, that might be disqualifying.
Canada is clearly not one of those countries. If a couple of hundred bucks is the worst punishment with which we’re willing to threaten politicians, I would much rather give them as much rope as they need to hang themselves, and measure what’s left of the rope come election day.
National Post
cselley@postmedia.com
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