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 caregivers will receive $15-20 hourly during the day as well as $11-13/hr for overnight shifts.
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But they’re also playing to the crowd, those Canadian taxpayers who watched Trudeau’s campaign against the Conservative child benefit plan. That is the wrong priority.
A Prime Minister’s Office spokeswoman says Trudeau will keep the same number of full-time household staff – six – as former Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper.
During the election campaign, Trudeau attacked the Conservative government for handing out tax cuts and benefits, including a new universal child care benefit, to Canada’s wealthiest families – including his own. It was not particularly lucrative, though the families she worked with did pay her in gratitude. Back then, he argued “We don’t need it. And Canada can’t afford it”.
Interim Conservative Leader Rona Ambrose says Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is a rich man and should pay for his own nannies. On whether or not this new treaty will be binding or not, Harrison says that remains to be seen, but she does think the global community is taking a new approach that is viable and does in fact move us forward.
“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”, spokesperson Kate Purchase told the CBC.
Trudeau and his wife Sophie have three young children – Xavier, Ella-Grace and Hadrien – who make the family eligible for $3,400 a year in child-care benefits, money Trudeau has promised to give to charity. And in the shadow of the Pierre Trudeau years, incoming prime minister Brian Mulroney – in an effort to show he was not on the public dole like his predecessor – emphatically stated that Canadians would never have to pay for nannies for his children.
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. “It is an ongoing process and will be finalized in the coming days”, Purchase said in an email.
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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.
