Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre blasted Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for visiting a luxury estate belonging to a family friend and donor.
A vacation to Jamaica by Trudeau and his family is facing renewed scrutiny after it was revealed that the private villa they were staying at belonged to a Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation donor.
From Dec. 26, 2022 to Jan. 4, 2023 the Trudeaus were staying at an estate owned by Peter Green.
The vacation is believed to have cost taxpayers at least $162,000 – most of which included RCMP security services.
According to the official website, stays at the Prospect Estate can cost up to $7,000 a night and includes a personal concierge and private beaches.
While Trudeau addressed his latest vacation in the House of Commons, Poilievre and fellow Conservative MPs shouted that the prime minister was a “freeloader” as he discussed his relationship with the Greens.
“Throughout the decades, I continued to be friends with these people and to visit them,” said Trudeau.
“Sometimes I would go to theirs, sometimes they would come to mine. We are real friends … and I think even Conservatives would understand the concept of real friends.”
Although the Office of the Conflicts of Interest and Ethics Commissioner green-lit the trip, they did not specify whether they were aware of the property’s connection to a Trudeau Foundation donor.
In 2021, the Trudeau Foundation revealed that they received a generous donation from the Greens to set up a $180,000 scholarship.
The new revelations come after a mass resignation of the Trudeau Foundation’s CEO and board of directors following sources within the intelligence community revealing that the organization received a $200,000 donation at the behest of the Chinese government.
“Following a unanimous consensus reached by the board before its dissolution, the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation is launching an independent review of its acceptance of the donation with a potential connection to the Chinese government,” said board member Edward Johnson.
“This review will be conducted by an accounting firm instructed by a law firm, neither of which were previously involved with the foundation.”
