By Elie Cantin-Nantel
Documents show that taxpayers were billed $61,000 for hotel rooms during a recent trip to New York City by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to attend the celebrity-studded “Global Citizen NOW” anti-poverty summit.
As reported by the National Post, the documents containing the figures were released in response to an order paper question from B.C. Conservative MP Dan Albas.
Fourteen rooms were booked at the luxury Intercontinental New York Barclay hotel for the night of April 25, 39 rooms were booked for the night of April 26 and 27, and 11 were booked for the night of April 28.
Each hotel room cost $562.72 CAD per night.
The government also rented an office for PMO and Privy Council Office staff to use in the hotel, for the cost of $1,137.29 CAD. However, the document notes that the latter is standard procedure during Prime Ministerial trips.
Trudeau flew from Ottawa to New York on an RCAF Challenger private jet on April 26. Eleven other passengers were on board the plane, including Trudeau’s executive assistant James Armbruster, his official photographer Adam Scotti, his official videographer Akshay Grover, former PMO adviser Jeremy Broadhurst and chief-of-staff Katie Telford.
The documents did not provide the cost of the flights.
