Travel in the Aga Khan: a motion conservative to force Trudeau to refund the fee

File Photo, AFP

QMI agency

Tuesday, February 6, 2018 12:23

UPDATE
Tuesday, February 6, 2018 12:25

Look at this article

OTTAWA | The official opposition wants to force Justin Trudeau to reimburse the public expenditure related to his stay on the private island of the Aga Khan, a stay during which the prime minister has broken the Law on conflict of interest.

“It has spent for a personal journey that proved to be illegal. This is a serious violation of the public trust,” said the leader of the conservatives Andrew Scheer, Tuesday morning, at a press conference in Parliament.

The motion filed by his party in the House of commons requires that “if an mp violates the Law on conflict of interests […] or if it violates the Code governing conflicts of interest of mps, and, in so doing, it represents a cost to the taxpayer, this deputy must reimburse these costs to the taxpayer”.

The conservatives have been asking for weeks for the refund of more than $ 200,000 in public spending on security and transportation incurred by reason of the travel of Justin Trudeau in the Bahamas at the billionaire spiritual leader of the ismaili community.

Confronted day after day the questions of the conservatives in the Room, the prime minister has not expressed any intent to repay this amount.

“As I’ve said several times, and as was the case for all the prime ministers before me, there are always significant costs associated with moves of the prime minister, no matter where he goes in the country or in the world”, is justified Justin Trudeau on Monday in question period.

It reminds us each time to have taken the entire responsibility of the wrongs alleged against him and be committed to approve all of his personal trips in the future.

After an investigation of several months, the ethics commissioner Mary Dawson filed December 20, his report to Trudeau. It concludes that the prime minister has breached four articles of the Law on conflict of interest when he stayed on the private island of the Aga Khan, of 26 December 2016 to 4 January 2017.

Ms. Dawson, however, she indicated in front of the ethics committee of the House of commons, at the beginning of the month of January, that she did not believe that the prime minister had to repay the costs of the trip, because fees are inherent in all his movements.