Trudeau needs an etiquette commissioner.
Let’s put aside, for a moment, the questions of ethics and law. Those were resolved in the days before Christmas, when federal ethics commissioner Mary Dawson ruled that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau violated the conflict of interest act several times over when he flew on the Aga Khan’s private helicopter en route to a vacation at his private Bahamian island.
We now know Trudeau took his family and friends to Bells Cay three times: once in 2014, once over the holidays in 2016 and once again in the spring of 2017 — the latter two trips occurring while the Aga Khan’s foundations were conducting business with the government of Canada.
The current Aga Khan was friends with Trudeau’s father, and the families even vacationed together in the ' 80s, the younger Trudeau lost touch with his future vacation host when his father left office.
Save for a polite correspondence at the time of Pierre Elliott Trudeau’s funeral in 2000, the Aga Khan resumed his friendship with Justin only after junior won the Liberal leadership in 2013. He sent a type-written congratulatory letter, along with a reminder of the partnership between the government and his Global Centre for Pluralism. Despite the Aga Khan’s 30- year absence from his life, this was apparently enough to rekindle a deep and meaningful friendship.
And indeed, over the next year they met several times, the PM eventually coming to refer to the spiritual leader of Ismaili Muslims as “Uncle K.” Soon, said Uncle extended a standing invitation to the Trudeau family to vacation at Bells Cay, which they did in Christmas 2014.
After Trudeau was elected prime minister in 2015, the relationship grew more complicated. According to Dawson’s report, Sophie Grégoire Trudeau contacted the Aga Khan’s daughter, Princess Zahra Aga Khan, to ask if their family could attend the island again over that year’s Christmas break. Permission was granted, although the princess said she and her family might also attend — and since the Aga Khan seemed to keep a petting zoo of powerful and interesting people on the Cay over the holidays, Grégoire Trudeau seems to have felt within her rights to invite friends.
Again setting aside the questions of ethics, pause to imagine how this conversation might have unfolded:
Sophie: “Darling! We had such a lovely time last year. May we come again for Christmas?”
Zahra: “Uh ... I mean, we’ll probably be using the island then, but sure. I guess.”
Sophie: “Lovely! We’ l l bring some friends.”
Perhaps this is WASPishly uptight of me, but one simply does not invite oneself to a professional acquaintance’s private island over Christmas, then arrive with an entourage. It’s one thing to be extended such an extravagant offer, another entirely to accept it. At this point I’m not sure whether this government is more in need of an ethics commissioner or an etiquette commissioner.
At first, I thought this whole situation so bizarre it was funny. Now I think it’s sad.
Imagine, for a moment, that a friend of your late father, whom you had rarely seen over the course of 30 years, shows up in your life shortly after you acquire a modicum of power or wealth; most ordinary people would have the sense to be guarded.
But the Prime Minister isn’t ordinary people. He spent his childhood jet- setting with the influential and the famous, the sort of people for whom friendship and agenda intertwine.
It’s almost easy to feel a touch sorry for Trudeau, here: this mess isn’t a sign of corruption so much as the naïveté evoked by a life coloured by wealth, power and celebrity.
I believe Trudeau thought of the Aga Khan as, first and foremost, his friend.
But Dawson’s analysis of their relationship pointed out what would be obvious to the severely normal; the Aga Khan may have been friendly, his affections may have been real — even well-intentioned — but they were also calculated to gain the trust of a young politician on the make.
This is not to say that the Aga Khan’s actions were nefarious; Dawson’s report simply paints a picture of an effective political operator, one who successfully nurtured relationships with Canada and most of her prime ministers over decades.
This proved to be a very effective tack for him. For example, in September 2016, the leader of an unnamed country elicited the Khan’s help mediating an environmental dispute with the subsidiary of a Canadian mining company.
“The leader of that country had asked the Aga Khan to contact the Government of Canada given the Aga Khan’s close relationship with the leaders of Canada,”
The Khan spoke with Trudeau about the matter, then followed up with a letter which concluded, Dawson wrote, “with a wish that he and Mr. Trudeau could soon meet on ' the island.' The letter was signed 'as always, K.'"
The Aga Khan is part spiritual leader, part geopolitical powerbroker.
The Aga Khan leads Ismaili Muslims, a moderate but tiny sect of Islam weathering an increasingly volatile world. Developing a relationship with the leaders of a peaceful country that accepts a lot of high-talent immigrants from difficult places makes all kinds of sense.
He is also, as per Forbes, one of the world’s richest royals and a business magnate.
The Liberals knew that palling around with a royal billionaire on a private island presented some optics problems for a prime minister who presents himself as the champion of the middle class and its values; remember, they tried to keep the vacation a secret, demanding privacy for the Trudeaus. As a general rule, if you need to keep something a secret, it is best not done.
However virtuous and well- intentioned the parties may have been in planning a Christmas on Uncle K.'s island, it is astonishing the Prime Minister did not see the potential for trouble.
As they say, the rich are different.