Juno News - Trudeau travels the world at Canada’s expense

00:00:00.000 Well, if you thought Justin Trudeau stopped costing Canadians taxpayers money after he

00:00:10.440 left office, you can think again. Canadians are picking up a hefty tab for RCMP security.

00:00:17.000 Costs are likely to be in the millions of dollars. When he was Prime Minister,

00:00:21.080 security costs peaked at over $32 million a year. Québécois Media is reporting the former

00:00:27.780 Prime Minister still maintains a security detail of three or four RCMP officers who travel with

00:00:34.180 him. Since he left office, he's been to Davos, Saint-Tropez, San Francisco, among other locations.

00:00:40.640 His personal trips with family have included locations in Italy and Switzerland.

00:00:46.340 When you add up the costs of travel to salaries, meals, accommodations, and overtime for his

00:00:52.860 security team, things get very expensive indeed. Then there's the complications of his ongoing

00:00:58.520 relationship with pop star Katy Perry and the viral videos posted of their antics, including

00:01:05.380 this one. Our guest today is security expert Ross McLean, former law enforcement and bodyguard to

00:01:26.360 the billionaires. Welcome, Ross. Hey, good to be with you. Glad to talk to you about these issues

00:01:31.180 today, Mark. Let's get into this. Yeah, well, considering the cost to taxpayers of his security

00:01:36.600 detail and how, well, let's face it, inconsequential Justin Trudeau is, would there be much of a

00:01:43.960 security threat around Justin Trudeau that he should be concerned and need this kind of level

00:01:49.960 of security? Well, that's the question really to be answered here, actually, Mark, because I used

00:01:57.260 to do, as you know, I was in the world of close protection. I have protected the royal family

00:02:02.260 before. I have protected internationally protected people before. And I've also done it on the private

00:02:07.340 side. And the RCMP is under no obligation, actually, to offer any protection to Justin

00:02:14.600 on a you-must-do-it basis. It's supposed to be on a case-by-case assessment of the threat value

00:02:21.240 against him and what it is. So they're not obligated to do it. Many prime ministers in the

00:02:25.900 past formers have turned it down, or they only use it on special occasions. If they're going somewhere

00:02:31.580 as an ex-prime minister to a conference somewhere, they might ask for that to invoke it. Or if the

00:02:38.220 government asks them to go somewhere, they might invoke having the extra protection. But just to

00:02:43.800 have it put on regardless, this could be actually a massive cost based on what they're doing to the

00:02:51.480 taxpayers could be massive mark yeah well i suggest that it's in the millions i mean when

00:02:57.660 he was prime minister i think it peaked at over 32 million dollars per year and now if he's got

00:03:04.740 three or four people around him on these trips i mean you've got to pay for their travel their

00:03:11.040 meals their overtime their salaries obviously and so that's you know we're running into some

00:03:18.000 serious money at this point do you think it's likely that trudeau asked for this a level of

00:03:24.000 security or was it offered to him by the rcmp all right well the rcmp is technically they're

00:03:31.040 supposed to go based on the threat assessment that they do to him and the threat assessment

00:03:35.920 could be look one time we had a uh a sort of a distant member of the royal family if you're in

00:03:41.840 the royal family you go so far out and you get protection and you go a little farther you're

00:03:46.960 kind of on your own right so there was a more distant member of the royal family who came over

00:03:51.200 to canada and i got a call i was working privately at the time saying hey can you please provide

00:03:55.680 security for this person i said hold on that's they're the royal family like what are you asking

00:04:00.240 me to do it for they don't know they're just outside of it so we're gonna we're gonna pay

00:04:04.560 you for it if you can take it on to do it outside so there's that sort of a consideration the next

00:04:09.760 consideration though mark is how big a team do you use right if you're on a trip 24 7 you just

00:04:16.400 can't have one person covering you 24 7 everywhere you go there's shifts i mean a full a full bodyguard

00:04:24.080 contingent could be seven people right seven people double time over time all the time all

00:04:31.120 expenses all the places everywhere you go that adds up so the question would be is there really

00:04:36.720 that level of threat against the prime minister do they have people phoning them in do they have

00:04:42.160 letters like what's going on not to mention his girlfriend katie perry i'm sure she's got private

00:04:49.360 security around her so there already is a level of security that's there so how much of this is

00:04:56.000 feeding at the trough and feeding the ego i mean that's for the rcmp to answer we know that they

00:05:01.360 don't like to answer questions though mark they don't like to answer these sort of questions

00:05:05.600 they should be straightforward answers they make a a great point about the ego because of course

00:05:11.280 he's no longer prime minister and you know when you're basically a narcissist you want to still

00:05:17.600 feel like you're important and well it makes you feel important when you've got people around you

00:05:22.960 whose job it is to protect you and unfortunately we're getting a big fat bill we don't know how

00:05:28.960 big that bill is but we hope to find out at some point i mean i doubt that stephen harper has ever

00:05:34.880 had this level of security since he left office. I just don't think that's necessary in his part

00:05:43.300 or that previous prime ministers, you know, Kretien, for instance, Mulroney's gone.

00:05:49.900 Let me tell you. Let me tell you about Stephen Harper. Sure. I recently protected him at an

00:05:55.260 event. He was at an event that I was doing protection at. Now, it was a fairly high-profile,

00:06:00.560 high-risk event because of some of the other attendees there also had their inner they were

00:06:06.120 internationally protected people high ranking levels of an outside government that came

00:06:11.060 and uh mr harper was coming and he did have two mounties assigned to him for coming to it

00:06:18.440 but but that is reasonable right that was reasonable uh for doing that so he uh if if

00:06:25.960 the threat is right and it's public enough, fine. And if it's a high risk event, that was a high

00:06:31.020 risk event. So, but I don't see Trudeau doing that. I see him, I don't know, running around

00:06:35.940 San Tropez or wherever else he is doing. I'm not sure. Maybe the threat is more from sunburn or

00:06:40.820 something. I don't know. Well, crime is up. Repeat offenders are released on bail. Police responses

00:06:47.440 are slower than ever. And in many places, law-abiding citizens are expected to just hope

00:06:53.900 nothing bad happens. That's not good enough. And that's exactly where Berna comes in. Berna

00:06:59.780 is a non-lethal self-defense launcher designed to give you real protection when you need it.

00:07:06.520 You don't need a firearms license. You don't need a background check. There's no waiting period.

00:07:12.200 There's no permanent life-altering consequences if you're forced into the situation where you

00:07:17.780 have to defend yourself. And right now, Berna is having their biggest sale ever. 25% off everything

00:07:25.460 this week only. Use the link in the description or visit junomarketplace.com slash Berna for

00:07:33.420 special offers. Make sure that you're prepared. It's better to be safe than sorry. Yeah, I was

00:07:40.940 going to ask you as well about the Katy Perry factor. I mean, here you have a pop star, very

00:07:45.900 well-known who to your point probably has her own security but they post videos very public they're

00:07:52.300 very much out there i mean from the perspective of a security person an expert like yourself

00:07:58.920 how does that complicate matters well there's a question of whether it complicates or not the

00:08:06.000 other one we go back to ego a little bit right so much of the protection i did privately was for

00:08:11.580 billionaires. And what a real billionaire does, they don't want to have a whole lot of muscle

00:08:16.720 around them because it makes them look weak. They don't like saying, hey, I got to have all

00:08:22.380 this security just so I can walk. It makes them look weak. So it's very much low profile. You're

00:08:28.000 in a suit. You'd be dressed the same as anybody else. It's low profile. When you move to celebrities,

00:08:33.760 that's a whole different style of bodyguards. They like to have the big monster man standing

00:08:38.960 there next to him it looks like he could you know pick up a car and throw it across the street they

00:08:43.440 like to have thug looking people walking around like you come near me we're going to clean you up

00:08:48.320 they actually use that as part of their celebrity for pushing it so they make sure they get noticed

00:08:55.200 right they use that to get noticed the true people who are under threat who are billionaires and

00:09:00.800 people who are under threat you're low-key you're low-key that's how you do it you don't come through

00:09:07.120 in a purple Rolls Royce with a marching band in front of you.

00:09:10.920 You're in a low-key expedition or something like that.

00:09:16.040 You're not in a, you know, like, say, the big Escalade.

00:09:18.020 So the question really needs to be, this is on the RCMP for approving these expenses.

00:09:23.220 And I'd love to see them be more responsive on these issues as to what it is.

00:09:27.520 Because if he, they're low.

00:09:29.420 The RCMP are low on people.

00:09:31.120 We have terrorism events going on right now in Toronto.

00:09:33.820 We've got the U.S. consulate being shot up in Toronto.

00:09:36.620 The U.S. consulate being threatened with a guy who's going to bomb it out on the east coast on Halifax.

00:09:41.580 We've got shoot-for-hire people going on in here who are shooting at synagogues and going at people.

00:09:46.480 Now, the RCMP are involved in those investigations.

00:09:49.900 How many people have they got off doing that?

00:09:53.620 And these would be quite qualified people, I imagine.

00:09:56.860 Yeah, it'd be a lot cheaper just to give them a baseball cap so that nobody recognizes him.

00:10:02.940 rather than spending i mean god knows how much money we're throwing at this guy and it's

00:10:09.400 interesting as well you compare him to other even better known celebrities you know the keanu reeves

00:10:15.180 of the world who will ride the subway you know and and not draw attention to themselves with an

00:10:21.500 entourage of beefy bodyguards and he seems to be fine you know you just kind of walk around maybe

00:10:29.640 you put a baseball cap. I mean, people just sort of leave you alone. And the fact that you think

00:10:35.720 you deserve this kind of attention by guards sends the message that, look how important I am,

00:10:43.080 you know, that I require this level of security. But I'm just, do you have any idea how expensive

00:10:49.820 this would be? I mean, I know you don't know, and I don't know yet, but you're talking about three,

00:10:54.820 possibly four people according to kebacore media travel traveling with him you know to

00:11:01.240 places like saint tropez uh on personal trips for instance with his family to italy and switzerland

00:11:08.740 i mean this is going to be very expensive i mean if you were giving you were handing the bill to

00:11:15.680 the government of canada to the people of canada how big would that bill be any idea at all well

00:11:21.140 if i was billing okay the government of canada and they're paying for me it would be like carny

00:11:25.700 bill billing for his peanut butter sandwiches on his plane i would bill i would bill through that's

00:11:30.420 a fifteen hundred dollar peanut butter sandwich right but i mean but i mean realistically a good

00:11:36.660 close protection professional minimum is around 150 bucks an hour minimum 150 bucks an hour but

00:11:44.580 you're looking at doubling that right because they're on overtime and you're working extra time

00:11:49.140 and then there's travel. Then you have per diems. And like I say, how many people are there? And are

00:11:54.780 you cycling them in and out? Does someone have to be away from their family and their home

00:11:58.660 for three months while he tours Europe? Or do you cycle people in and out? You need advanced people,

00:12:04.920 you need people to walk with you, you need people to respond in the middle of the night,

00:12:08.640 just in case something happens in the middle of the night. The cost, trust me, there was one

00:12:13.860 billionaire in particular that we used to do close protection for they had outstanding threats

00:12:19.200 because of how wealthy they were they were from another country right so the people in the other

00:12:25.600 country were always had a threat out against them uh he he did not like he was part of a public

00:12:32.400 company at the time and he did not like how big the bill was to have to protect him which was

00:12:37.980 necessary and reasonable because he thought this is shareholders money right because the shareholders

00:12:43.280 were actually paying for it. And he would find ways to try and shift it away from the company

00:12:47.960 because he did not want to be seen taking advantage of the company that way. And it's

00:12:54.380 expensive. It's expensive for billionaires to have a full, really qualified team of security

00:13:02.780 professionals. You'd have seven on a team, eight-hour shifts, boom, 21 people, right? Or you

00:13:10.380 cycle them on, you cycle them off. It's big money. And how long do you do it for? I mean,

00:13:17.040 maybe you could provide this for a little while, you know, but it's been, what, a year and a half

00:13:22.880 since he left office or was pushed out, however they did it. And I mean, are we still going to

00:13:30.860 be picking up this massive tab three, four years down the road? I mean, how does the government

00:13:36.600 justify that well i think they need to and like i say the resources the scarce resources of the

00:13:42.760 police and particularly those qualified people we've got irgc terrorists running around this

00:13:48.320 country and other people and you need qualified close protection people to help hunt them down

00:13:53.260 to protect people from them uh and and as you say it costs a lot of money we i remember one time

00:13:58.600 back in the day we had a quote for a guy who was testifying against the mob and he had a fair bit

00:14:04.660 of money and they wanted us to put a close protection team together for him now we really

00:14:10.160 didn't do that type of business we didn't want to do it we're not into protecting people from the

00:14:14.080 mob not because we don't want to protect people but that's mob related where's the money all

00:14:19.940 coming from paying for us to be the protection and everything else right it's a little it's a

00:14:24.800 little cloudy and we just told the guy look we don't see how you can afford this your trial is

00:14:29.180 going to last like a year and a half or whatever it is you got enough money you won't be able to

00:14:33.060 cover a month worth of this worth of these bills right so we ended up declining on that so the

00:14:38.600 government really has to look at that and decide where are we going to spend these resources are

00:14:43.780 we going to put them there or is it just it doesn't matter like a thousand dollar peanut

00:14:48.260 butter and jam sandwich for carny let the other people eat cake i'm important i need to have a

00:14:55.060 i need to have a pile of security around me and like i say they're really big really good people

00:15:00.040 they don't really want it around them they have they do it because they need to do it and they

00:15:04.640 want it low profile yeah i mean from a security expert's perspective this would be a pretty sweet

00:15:10.520 gig i would think you're making terrific money you're getting to travel to all these exotic

00:15:16.420 locations and it can't be very hard i mean we're not talking about trump here or somebody who is

00:15:23.460 actually important that has actually been the target of assassination attempts. I mean, there

00:15:29.780 have been threats made against Trudeau when he was in office, I believe. I think there may have

00:15:35.620 been one guy tried to, I think, drive his car through the gate. There was that episode. I mean,

00:15:43.540 he never got close to Trudeau. But I mean, in this case, what do you think? I mean, I would think

00:15:50.240 that most people would jump at a gig like this one? So I once did a contract gig for the

00:15:56.520 government. There was a major strike going on with a union that was known for causing trouble

00:16:03.280 from time to time, shall we say. And there was a pile of properties that needed to be looked after,

00:16:07.840 protected and managed and all that. So they hired me at what I thought was an ungodly hourly rate

00:16:13.200 at the time to do the job. And then everything after eight hours, they paid me a double time

00:16:20.160 to 12 hours and it went to triple time and they were happy me with me working seven days a week

00:16:26.420 24 hours a day driving from site to site sleeping at some places where i'm at and i you build for

00:16:33.240 the whole thing so they can be pretty sweet deals yeah uh when when you're doing it well right

00:16:39.480 they're providing the meals they're providing accommodations and if they're staying in really

00:16:44.720 nice hotels you're probably staying in the same hotel as they are i mean i'm not saying it's a

00:16:49.420 vacation. I'm just saying it's kind of a sweet gig. How do people follow you online and find

00:16:56.600 where you are on YouTube? And they can catch me at McLean Chronicles on YouTube. And as I talked

00:17:03.360 to you before we went on air, I actually just did a video about the protection of President Trump

00:17:08.280 when they did the plane switch out of Turkey. And the regular mainstream media had a meltdown over

00:17:14.400 that. And I go into a bit of the descriptions about how you actually do assess threats when

00:17:19.200 you change them, when you heighten security, which is a good follow-on to the discussion we

00:17:23.560 just had here. So people can find me over there at McLean Chronicles on YouTube.

00:17:28.500 Thank you so much for coming on the show, Ross. We appreciate it as always.

00:17:31.960 Thank you, Mark.

00:17:33.180 If you enjoyed the show and appreciate great independent journalism, please consider

00:17:37.140 becoming a premier member of Juno News by going to junonews.com backslash straight up.

00:17:44.400 It helps us do what we do.

00:17:45.800 Thank you so much for tuning in.

00:17:46.960 We'll see you next time.

Juno News - August 24, 2026

Trudeau travels the world at Canada’s expense

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