Trudeau sets new trend for PMs stumping in by-elections

Approach raises questions over campaign costs

In Calgary Wednesday, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau confirmed a unique pattern he began last fall in Medicine Hat — a sitting prime minister who will jump right in and openly campaign for any underdogs flying the Liberal flag in a byelection.

Last fall, in the southern Alberta riding of Medicine Hat — Cardston — Warner, the Liberals were handily beaten by the Conservatives and, the early line is that Conservatives should be able to count on easy wins on April 3 when voters in the southern Calgary ridings of Calgary Heritage and Calgary Midnapore pick the MPs that will succeed Stephen Harper and Jason Kenney respectively.

Nonetheless, Trudeau was the star attraction at a Wednesday campaign rally in Calgary, a city which sent two Liberal MPs to Ottawa in the 2015 general election, an election that saw Liberal success in Calgary for the first time since another Trudeau swept to power in 1968.

Trudeau the Younger is not content to have simply a beach-head in Alberta, with two seats in each of Calgary and Edmonton.

“Albertans are tired of being taken for granted and they want a better option, and that’s exactly what we’re putting forward,” Trudeau said in Calgary. “We will not write off any corner of this country.

“That’s what I’m doing right here. That’s why I go to every byelection.”

While it is rare but not unheard-of for a sitting PM to stump in a byelection, Trudeau’s decision to campaign in Medicine Hat last fall and now Calgary has raised some questions for his own party — and his party’s opponents — about how to account for the costs of a campaigning prime minister.

Are taxpayers, for example, helping to pay for a campaigning PM? And what about election spending limits? Isn’t the expense of a prime minister’s tour — with all the security, special vehicles, additional prime ministerial aides — likely to be too much for the spending limits by which all campaigns must abide?

So far, the Liberal Party of Canada has satisfied itself that it will not only be doing right by the taxpayer but it will also be doing right by Elections Canada, the referee that enforces the election financing rules. Indeed, the party’s compliance officer has what amounts to a ‘comfort letter’ from Elections Canada about some aspects of how the party is interpreting what counts as an election expense for a campaigning PM and what does not.

Moreover, Braeden Caeley, the party’s communications director, says the party will reimburse the federal treasury for expenses such as hotels, meals, or airfare incurred as a result of the prime minister’s political activity.

Mind you, those airfare costs will be at the rate of equivalent economy airfare for a Calgary-Ottawa flight and not the $5,000-an-hour that the Department of National Defence says it costs to operate the RCAF Challenger executive jet that took Trudeau to Calgary and will take him back to Ottawa.

Canadian security agencies do not want prime ministers on commercial aircraft and prefer they use military jets and military pilots. But that is not a hard-and-fast rule, particularly when there are elections.

During a general election campaign, an incumbent prime minister will campaign using a chartered commercial jet flown by commercial pilots. The cost of that aircraft is borne exclusively by political parties and not by the taxpayer.

Moreover, Trudeau, during his short time in office, has already flown at least twice on a non-military aircraft. As the National Post first reported, during his Christmas holiday, he and his family used the personal helicopter of the Aga Khan to make the 110-km journey between Nassau and the Aga Khan’s private island in the Bahamas.

The thinking at Liberal Party headquarters right now is that Trudeau is a major asset to the Liberal brand and should be deployed in support of that brand whenever possible.

The party also believes it’s only fair that all leaders should be able to campaign in by-elections, even if that leader is the prime minister.