Missing The Point

The revelation that Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau accepted speaking engagements while a member of Parliament through a professional speaking group, Speakers' Spotlight, did not endear his ethic to many Canadians. Members of Parliament and Senators are often asked to speak to special interest groups, academic institutions and conferences arranged by charitable organizations. And because they are paid from the public purse through tax dollars, as elected (and non-elected) representatives of Parliament, they oblige without imposing a personal charge.

Justin Trudeau got around that inconvenient fact by insisting that though he was a member of Parliament, and he was always identified as such through Speakers' Spotlight and his own website, a fact extremely difficult to overlook by any means, he accepted speaking engagements as a "private citizen". Rather a stretch, but this has been his rejoinder when he's been taken to task over what appears to be consummate greed informing his choices.

SASKATOON,SK--JULY 06/2013-- Federal Liberal leader Justin Trudeau shakes hands with people at the Farmer's Market during a media event in Saskatoon, SK. on Saturday, July 6, 2013. (LIAM RICHARDS/STAR PHOENIX)

The Liberal party leader, in fact, revealed that he had been paid a total of $227,000 by seventeen organizations which had chosen to hire him for speaking engagements to address various events while a member of Parliament, though not yet the leader of his party. When it was revealed through the dissatisfaction expressed by a New Brunswick charity, the Grace Foundation which supports an 80-bed nursing home, that they had paid $20,000 for Trudeau to speak at a fund-raising event, but had lost money on the event, it was finally brought to public attention and critics responded.

Mr. Trudeau was doubtless surprised at the stir that arose out of the revealing of the dissatisfaction of the charity. Which had, in fact, contacted the Speakers' Spotlight and Justin Trudeau's office to ask for a return of the speaking fee. In response, once he had been sufficiently embarrassed over the situation, Mr. Trudeau said he was prepared to make everything "right" and return the speaking fee. The Grace Foundation demurred, having declared itself "deeply distressed" over the furore, and letting go the people identified as having alerted the media and the Conservative party over the fiasco.

Foundation chairman Ian Webster was in contact with Mr. Trudeau's office "and he informed us that they will not be requesting a reimbursement. They consider this matter closed", said a spokeswoman for Mr. Trudeau's office. The "huge disappointment and financial loss" originally brought to the attention of Justin Trudeau requesting repayment of the $20,000 speaking fee was presumably unauthorized, which wasn't the reason that Mr. Trudeau declined originally to return the fee.

The Conservative-led campaign to embarrass Justin Trudeau before the voting public served to change his mind and offer to return the fee. Now, evidently, he need not. The Grace Foundation board member who revealed to her local MP what had occurred, has been relieved of board affiliation, as well as half the other ten board members who had evidently been involved in making the affair public.

The Grace Foundation is by no means the only charitable group which invited Mr. Trudeau to speak on occasion, and to which he charged his stiff speaking fee. Including academic institutions which are themselves non-profit groups. The irony being that Justin Trudeau portrays himself as someone interested in welfare, in promoting education, in the well-being of the middle class. He is a young man born of privilege and with wealth, along with a promising future.

That future, given his evident lack of scruples, his inability to understand how ethically compromised his decisions have been, his comfort level in charging charities for appearing before them when he is already well compensated by the public to do so, should not include succeeding to the prime minister's office. He has tarnished himself beyond redemption in this and other ways.

That he sees no need to himself recognize the inappropriateness of his actions and simply return the hefty fees he charged to appear while a member of Parliament at events put on by non-profit and charitable entities speaks to his lack of judgement. The gesture of returning the generous and inappropriate fees as a charitable gift to those charities he once charged seems to have passed by his notice as a measure of contrition.