Is Trudeau’s latest vacation scandal a sign he has already checked out?

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Colourful Quebec Conservative MP Jacques Gourde came up with a delicious pun to describe the varying explanations given by the Prime Minister’s Office about Justin Trudeau’s Christmas vacation at a friend’s luxury Jamaican villa.

During a Wednesday House of Commons ethics committee hearing looking into Mr. Trudeau’s 10-day stay at the exclusive Prospect Estate resort, located on the site of an 18th-century sugar plantation, Mr. Gourde used a French expression whose English translation roughly means “Trying to pull the wool over our eyes.” Literally, however, the expression “Nous prendre pour des valises” translates as “taking us for suitcases.”

Vacation, suitcases. You get it, right?

Mr. Gourde provided a moment of levity in an otherwise tense hearing as Tory members of the committee called for the release of all correspondence related to Mr. Trudeau’s Jamaican trip between the Prime Minister’s Office and the Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner. The content of these exchanges matters because the PMO said the freebie trip had been preapproved by interim ethics commissioner Konrad von Finckenstein, even though his office does not typically pre-clear the vacations of officials covered by the federal Conflict of Interest Act and the House conflict of interest code.

What’s more, the PMO provided different versions of how Mr. Trudeau would handle expenses for the Caribbean getaway for him, his estranged wife Sophie Grégoire Trudeau and their three children. It initially said Mr. Trudeau would cover the cost himself. Then it said the family was staying “at no cost at a location owned by family friends.” Finally, the PMO said the Trudeaus were staying “with” family friends in Jamaica.

Mr. Trudeau added to the confusion when, in his first statement on the issue, he said: “Like many Canadian families, we stayed at a friend’s during the Christmas holidays; all of the rules were followed.” Since it is likely his comments were a well-rehearsed product of PMO communications whizzes, the absence of the word “with” raised eyebrows.

MPs call on Ethics Commissioner to testify amid scrutiny over Trudeau’s Jamaica vacation

Clearly, Mr. Trudeau was not sleeping in anyone’s basement guest bedroom over the holidays. The National Post estimated the cost of the Trudeaus’ stay at Prospect Estate, owned by British businessman Peter Green, at $84,000, based on prevailing rates. Mr. Green’s company could have presumably earned that amount by renting out the same villa to paying guests. Instead, Mr. Trudeau got one hell of a Christmas gift.

Accepting gifts from friends – real friends, that is, and not friends of convenience – is allowed under the law. But really, this latest ethics scandal is about more than whether Mr. Trudeau followed the letter of the law. The PMO’s multiple do-overs expose the basic lack of transparency that has become the modus operandi of a tired government that no longer even pretends to care about the lofty principles it vowed to uphold in 2015.

Canadians have always known that Mr. Trudeau likes to travel in elite circles. But to the extent that they believed his promise to improve the lives of the least privileged among us, they did not hold it against him.

So what if he broke the law by spending his 2016 Christmas holidays on the billionaire Aga Khan’s private island in the Bahamas? His heart has always been in the right place, right? Besides, no one expected our celebrity PM to spend his holidays among the plebs. He had been in Vogue, for heaven’s sake.

There are limits, however, to Canadians’ willingness to indulge the Prime Minister’s expensive tastes when millions of them are house-poor, underhoused or struggling to meet the rent. When having to renew their mortgage at today’s interest rates means staycations for years to come.

Spare us the line about our hard-working Prime Minister deserving a break. The British Royals knew well enough not to flee London during the Blitz; surely Mr. Trudeau must have known that evoking an episode of Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous would not be the best look for him right now.

After all, his approval rating has been in a free fall for months. Almost six in 10 Canadians now have a negative opinion of him, according to a recent Abacus Data poll. Only 25 per cent have a positive view of him. Canadians just aren’t into him any more.

If you didn’t know better, you might conclude that Mr. Trudeau’s seeming indifference to public perceptions of him is a sign that he has already, mentally at least, checked out of Rideau Cottage. If he was really intent on seeking a fourth term, he would be extra careful to avoid giving Canadians any more reasons to want to see him go.

Either that or he’s just taking them for suitcases.