TORONTO SUN: TRUDEAU’S 6.000$ PER NIGHT HOTEL STAY SHOWS HE HAS NO RESPECT FOR YOUR MONEY

By: Brian Lilley

Photo: Toronto Sun

It’s not just ridiculous hotel bills, under Trudeau, spending on everything is up and you can’t say government service has improved

It’s clear Justin Trudeau stayed in the $6,000 per night hotel room and it’s clear the government will go to great lengths to hide that. The expense came as part of the Canadian delegation to the funeral of Queen Elizabeth II last September.

Despite questions in the media, including from me given that I broke the story, and from opposition parties, third-party activist groups and more, the government won’t say. They recently invoked national security grounds not to release the information months after the event happened.

As political commentator Norman Spector pointed out online, if the Trudeau government won’t ask for a correction, or even sue myself and the Sun for defamation for claiming Trudeau stayed in the $6,000 per nigh room with butler service, then it confirms the story. I’ve made that claim multiple times and no one in the Trudeau government has asked me for a correction, just like no one in the Trudeau government has answered questions on the issue.

While Trudeau supporters dismiss this story as not being serious, it’s just $6,000 per night for a hotel room over five nights, that misses the bigger problem with spending and this government.

“Take care of the pennies and the pounds will take care of themselves,” the old saying goes.

Sadly, with Trudeau leading our government, we are left with someone who believes his own saying that, “the budget will balance itself.”

That hasn’t worked out since he took office in 2015, blowing past every spending and deficit target both before and after COVID. The $6,000 per night hotel room for the PM may be a small part of the problem, but it is a very real problem.

In 2015, when the Trudeau Liberals took office, the total spend in the federal budget was projected to be $288 billion. In 2016, the Liberals first year running the budget, that jumped to projected spending of $317 billion a 10% spending increase.

In their last pre-COVID budget, the Liberals projected spending of $355 billion or an increase from the Harper years of 23%, well above the rate of inflation or population growth.

During the pandemic, total Government of Canada spending went as high as $635 billion per year as government’s paid people to stay home and offered subsidies to businesses ordered closed. Now, with the pandemic support spending behind us, the Trudeau government is spending $472 billion in this current fiscal year according to the fall economic statement.

That amounts to a 64% increase in government spending since they took office at a time when pretty much all pandemic spending has wound down. That is an incredible increase in spending without an increase in the level of government services.

Since Trudeau took office, employment in the federal public service has increased by 20%, spending on outside consultants has increased by 40%. If you’ve waited in line for a passport, tried to get your NEXUS card approved, attempted to help a relative immigrate, or used just about any government service, you cannot say that it is 20%, 40% or 64% better than it was eight years ago — you are simply paying more.

This is why the $6,000 per night hotel room matters. Because to the Trudeau Liberals, your tax dollars are used to support him, not provide you with services.

Under previous governments, Liberal and Conservative, there were rules in place to stop excess. There was a general expectation that tax dollars collected would be spent wisely.

Those rules don’t apply to Trudeau, which is why you are paying more and getting less — but his life, his lifestyle, is getting better.

In Trudeau’s universe, you are there to serve him, not the other way around.