Yes, I know, Trudeau made a big to-do during the campaign about exactly how much his family doesn’t need taxpayer dollars to cover child care.
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“Mr. Trudeau repeatedly, repeatedly said “I am wealthy”, interim Conservative Leader Rona Ambrose told reporters following a caucus meeting Wednesday.
“I just think he should pay for it himself”, Ambrose said in an interview.
I think most fair minded Canadians agree. Trudeau said government should help families who need a leg up, “not families like mine or Mr. Harper’s” who have money to burn.
New Democrat MP Sheila Malcolmson, the party’s status of women critic, called out the prime minister for paying his nannies so little.
Canadians have a miserly, cheap streak in them.
NDP Leader Tom Mulcair said he was surprised the prime minister provided his family with child care as one of his “first official acts”.
The Prime Minister’s Office said Wednesday that the total number of people working at Rideau Cottage, the prime minister’s residence, will not increase despite the two recent nanny hires.
“It does not jive with the very strong pronouncements he made in the election campaign that taxpayers should not be subsidizing wealthy families like his”.
Manuela Gruber Hersch, president of the Association of Caregiver and Nanny Agencies Canada, said Trudeau’s caregivers are “absolutely” receiving the average rate.
She says there is a shortage of nannies in Canada that became worse when the last government tightened the rules around temporary foreign workers. According to the Broadbent Institute, the richest 20 per cent of Canadians own nearly 70 per cent of the country’s wealth. “Canadians don’t want to be nannies”.
Security issues are another consideration, she added.
Is it an Imelda Marcos-scale story of entitlement and narcissism?
The elder Trudeau, Pierre, also hired a nanny to look after his young sons, paid for on public accounts.
After it had been disclosed he was using public money to fund nannies to look after his kids, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau continues to be accused of hypocrisy. The reason is the optics, which are lousy – even for, or perhaps especially for, a leader enjoying a protracted honeymoon.
“Given the nature of the prime minister’s responsibilities and his young family, the Trudeaus employ two household employees who, in addition to performing other duties around the house, act as secondary caregivers to the three children”, said a representative for the prime minister.
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Isabelle Lecointe, who cared for Trudeau and his two brothers while their father Pierre served as prime minister, said she is “a bit disturbed” by the outrage over the nannies, saying the matter has been taken out of “context”. “It is an ongoing process and will be finalized in the coming days”, Kate Purchase, the PM’s director of communications said in an e-mail to CBC News. She has not provided dates.
