OTTAWA—Conservative MPs used their strongest rhetoric yet on Wednesday, Nov. 23, to question the prime minister’s decision to attend a private fundraiser with “billionaire communist donors.”
Seizing on the narrative that the Liberals remain a party of entitlements, opposition MPs agreed Prime Minister Justin Trudeau did not break any political financing laws when he attended a private, $1,500-a-plate fundraising event in May that included one person who helped fund Trudeau’s leadership bid and another who subsequently made a $1 million donation to the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation.
Conservative MP Blaine Calkins said Trudeau broke the spirit of the law and his own ethical standards set out to cabinet ministers that they must avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest.
“The Liberals don’t have a problem following the rules—they have an ethical problem following their own rules that the prime minister has set out for himself. He set the bar here for his government’s ethical behaviour,” Calkins said.
“We’re not talking about the election financing laws, we’re talking about the bar that was set here. He has failed miserably to come close to even meeting that standard. This is about his rules, it’s about his word, it’s about his promise to this House and to Canadians.”
