Western Standard - March 21, 2025


Western Standard, James Snell, asks if Carney will reimburse taxpayers for gold-plated European trip


Episode Stats

Length

3 minutes

Words per Minute

164.71295

Word Count

548

Sentence Count

37


Summary

Learn English with the Prime Minister of Canada, Justin Trudeau. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's answer to a question about his recent trip to Europe on a government wide-body jet cost taxpayers $500,000 to $1 million.


Transcript

00:00:00.240 Next question.
00:00:03.460 Prime Minister, thanks for taking my question, and welcome to Edmonton, and James from the Western Standard.
00:00:08.900 You recently...
00:00:10.180 Sorry about the microphone.
00:00:11.220 Yeah, no problem. I'm a pretty tall guy.
00:00:13.560 You have not been elected in a federal election yet, and you recently flew to Europe on government-wide-body jet at the expense of at least half a million dollars.
00:00:23.820 So the question I have for you today, and maybe I'll say this before I ask the question, these people around you all paid for that flight, and you've not been elected yet.
00:00:33.700 So will you commit to refunding these taxpayers for that flight?
00:00:39.100 Well, it's an interesting question, a way of framing it.
00:00:41.900 Look, and I'm going to go back to...
00:00:44.860 I'm going to allude to the question that was asked previously by Mr. Staples from the Journal and the situation that we're in as a country.
00:00:53.820 Which is, we are in an economic crisis that's brought on...
00:00:58.140 Sorry, I'm going to answer the question.
00:01:00.120 We're brought on by the tariffs that have been put on Canada, actual and perspective.
00:01:06.880 One of the challenges...
00:01:07.860 The economic crisis was brought on by former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and you were his advisor at the time.
00:01:14.700 I think you would find...
00:01:16.200 These people did not create that problem.
00:01:18.860 I certainly...
00:01:21.780 Hey, nobody in Canada created that problem.
00:01:24.820 Nobody in Canada created that problem.
00:01:27.140 The U.S. government has decided to put tariffs on all of its closest allies.
00:01:32.400 All of its closest allies.
00:01:34.520 I wouldn't for a moment suggest that anyone in Canada is the cause of this.
00:01:39.100 What our responsibility is, is to take action, to react to a different world that we're in.
00:01:46.380 And part of the way we do that is we build out new partnerships, new opportunities, including opportunities.
00:01:54.880 And I'm going to give you a specific one, and then I don't know if you have one more follow-up.
00:01:58.940 But I'll give you a specific example that goes to my previous answer, something I also discussed with the Premier this morning, which is Canada has many advantages, and one of them is in critical metals and minerals.
00:02:12.180 One of the issues is how are we going to develop the trade routes and the trade corridors rapidly in order to export those critical metals and minerals?
00:02:22.400 And who are our clients for that, who are our customers?
00:02:26.800 Do we only have one customer to the south of us, the customer that's attacking us, that doesn't respect the trade agreements that they signed?
00:02:35.340 Or should we develop new customers, new customers in Europe?
00:02:39.260 What's required, if I may, what's required for those new customers is to build out trade corridors and infrastructure, including what I referenced in my previous answer and discussed with the Premier,
00:02:50.680 is the potential to go north, go to new deepwater ports, Churchill as an example, Grays Point in Nunavut as another.
00:02:59.540 And that creates a whole new set of opportunities for Albertans as a whole, for people across the country, for these hardworking people around me and those like them in the trades.
00:03:11.980 And that's what my job is.
00:03:14.080 I'll take that as a no, then.
00:03:14.900 No, you'll take that as a very comprehensive answer to your question.
00:03:19.240 Thank you.