Canada’s federal opposition parties are calling out Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for using taxpayer dollars to pay for two nannies helping to care for his three young children.
Advertisement
Marilou Nemiada Trayvilla and Marian Pueyo were hired last month as “special assistants” in the prime minister’s residence, although their roles appear chiefly to be providing child care to the three Trudeau children, who are 19 months, six years and eight years old.
The statement does not address the apparent contradiction with Trudeau’s comments during the election campaign that “wealthy families… like mine” don’t need the help of taxpayers to finance child care.
I think we need to get past an intentionally naive notion that the Prime Minister’s household should be run just like any other household.
It’s also “very common” for caregivers to receive a reduced wage for the night shift, she added.
Justin Trudeau, his wife Sophie Gregoire-Trudeau and their children Ella-Grace, Hadrien and Xavier lead the new Liberal cabinet to Rideau Hall in Ottawa on November 4, 2015.
Being prime minister isn’t a blank cheque, but it is a privileged position, and I couldn’t care less that we’re supporting two child-care professionals along with the gardener.
New Democrat MP Sheila Malcolmson, the party’s status of women critic, called out the prime minister for paying his nannies so little.
I think most fair minded Canadians agree.
There will be no increase in the number of staff working in the prime minister’s official residence, Rideau Cottage, pictured above. That benefit was worth about $3,000 a year to the Trudeau family.
“The prime minister will not expand the household staff of the prime minister’s residence”, Purchase said.
NDP Leader Tom Mulcair echoed that sentiment saying that “of course” the government provides some staff to the prime minister, but he said it was “surprising” that one of Trudeau’s “first official acts” was to provide him and his family with taxpayer-funded child care.
Trudeau’s office says the two women perform additional duties around the house and act as “secondary caregivers” to the three young children. “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. But all things considered, the hiring of a nanny to take care of the prime minister’s children should be a heck of a lot easier to defend than a $16 glass of orange juice.
Advertisement
Nelson Wiseman, a political science professor at the University of Toronto, said Trudeau will weather the issue relatively easily as there is still a “halo effect at work” after his recent election win, and many are sympathetic to the prime minister and his wife’s situation because he spends so much time away from his children.
