The Trudeau honeymoon hit a rough patch this week with the revelation that the PM is using taxpayer dollars to pay for two nannies for his children.
“Nannygate” quickly erupted, with pundits piling on about whether the Trudeaus need two nannies, who should foot the bill and what should be considered a legitimate household expense for a head of the country.
Granted, there are bigger things we could worry about.
Trudeau is not the first prime minister to employ nannies to care for his children on the public dime – although they weren’t always explicitly called that.
It also can’t be said that the Trudeaus don’t need help – raising young children in some semblance of normalcy while also tasked with running the country is no mean feat.
The nannies are not being paid high salaries and are among a staff that also includes a chef paid by taxpayers, for example.
That does raise questions about why paying a chef on the public dime is OK, but paying nannies is not.
The problem for Trudeau is he explicitly and repeatedly campaigned on policies of not giving public handouts for child care to wealthy families like his own. It feels, then, intensely hypocritical to suddenly turn around and bill taxpayers for the nannies.
A smart move for Trudeau at this point would be to offer to pay those costs himself.
Maybe then we can turn to more important issues – like how working parents in the rest of Canada – those who don’t have access to Trudeau’s wealth – should be supported by the public when it comes to their legitimate child-care expenses.
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