On Monday, PMO communications officer Erica Meekes sent The Advance details of an engagement that netted Trudeau a $10,000 fee, but left Georgian College with a $4,118 shortfall. The information was sent via email with the caveat it be referred to as coming from a “source,” not the PMO, when used.
“As a follow-up to the growing controversy over the weekend on Justin Trudeau charging charities for his speaking services, I have enclosed further materials that demonstrate the scope of this practice, cost on the organizations, and in many cases, poor outcomes and large deficits as a result of his speaking tour,” the email stated. “As discussed, these materials are provided to you on background, and should be attributed to a ‘source.’”
The material included invoices, a promotional poster and an accommodation receipt for the Toronto Four Seasons. Meekes wrote, “To be fair, there is an in-house yoga studio at the Four Seasons!”
When asked in a telephone interview why Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s office was sending out unsolicited documentation, Meekes said the PMO routinely reaches out to the media.
This is the first time, however, such financial information was released to The Advance from the PMO.
Normally, such work is the purview of partisan researchers.
Meekes’s email said to contact Patrick Brown, “the local MP for Georgian College,” for comment.
In an email from Ottawa, Brown said Trudeau shouldn’t be let off the hook for the Georgian loss, even if it occurred before he entered politics.
“I don’t know why he wouldn’t do it for free even before he was an MP. He didn’t charge the Liberals to do speeches at their partisan events,” said Brown. “Why charge charities and not-for-profits, especially when they are losing money, based on his professional ability to draw crowds?”
Trudeau is offering to compensate all the organizations for which he did paid public-speaking engagements while an MP, responding to a simmering controversy over how charities were billed for speeches he delivered between 2008 and 2012.
That would not include the 2007 Georgian event.
Original Article
Source: thestar.com
Author: Laurie Watt
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