Two-year tab to host VIPs hits $2.8M
Ottawa covers bills for hotel, ground transport
• The federal government has spent $2.8 million over the past two years to host visiting kings, queens, presidents, premiers and other VIPs, the National Post has learned.
The most expensive visit in the calendar years 2015 and 2016 was by Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Modi visited Ottawa, Toronto and Vancouver April 14-16, 2015, while Stephen Harper was prime minister, and Canada spent $491,000 hosting the Indian PM and his delegation.
The second most expensive red carpet to be rolled out was the working visit by Mexico’s head of state, President Enrique Peña Nieto. That visit, last June after Justin Trudeau was elected prime minister, cost the treasury $407,000.
U.S. president Barack Obama’s one-day visit to Ottawa last June left his Trudeau government hosts with a $99,000 bill. That was comparatively cheap given that Obama’s one-day visit to Ottawa in February, 2009, left the Harper government of the day with a $563,000 hospitality tab.
When foreign VIPs travel to Canada on official business, the federal government extends what are called “courtesies” to that VIP.
These courtesies typically involve covering hotel bills for the VIP and, depending on his or her rank, rooms for some aides, as well as ground transportation for the VIP.
When the Canadian prime minister or ministers travel abroad, our hosts reciprocate and pick up the hotel bills of the travelling Canadian delegation.
Canada, like most other countries in the world, applies different standards of diplomatic protocols depending on the VIP’s rank.
A head of state on a state visit, for example, is offered a room at Rideau Hall, the home of Canada’s Governor General. But if the head of state is here on a working visit, the VIP is offered the use of 7 Rideau Gate, another official residence just across from 24 Sussex Drive.
If Rideau Hall or 7 Rideau Gate are unavailable or declined, Ottawa offers to cover the cost of “one (1) suite (room and tax only) plus nine (9) standard rooms (room and tax only) at hotel of visitor’s choice.” By contrast, Canada will offer to pay just a “junior suite” for a lowly foreign minister whose aides will have to pick up their own tabs.
The costs of hosting dignitaries and the protocol rules for each were unearthed by Ottawa researcher Ken Rubin using federal accessto-information law and provided exclusively to the National Post.
Visiting dignitaries are warned that, while Canada will prepare a medical contingency plan, the federal government will assume no financial responsibility for the use of Canadian medical services.
This seems to be a standard applied by foreign governments to a travelling Canadian prime minister. When Trudeau and Harper have flown abroad, it is with a doctor on board the PM’s plane.
When the United Nations’ secretary general visits Canada — as Ban Ki-moon did in February, 2016 — he is given the same courtesies as a head of government. As a result, his three-night swing through Ottawa and Montreal cost Canada $246,821 in hotel and ground transportation charges.
But the secretaries general of NATO, the Commonwealth and the Francophonie are treated, for protocol purposes, as if they are ministers of foreign governments.
The most expensive “ministerial”-level visit of the past two years was a five-city tour of Eastern Canada, in June 2015, by the secretary general of La Francophonie, a position currently held by former Canadian governor general Michaelle Jean. That tour cost $23,119.
Among the big differences in the final year of the Harper government and the first 13 months of the Trudeau government is a sharp uptick in the number of official visits by senior United Nations officials.
From January to the end of July 2015, the Harper government covered $13,514 in hotel bills and ground transportation costs spread over four visits by senior UN officials.
Trudeau, from December 2015 to December 2016, hosted visits from 12 UN officials, not including the visit by the UN secretary general. Those 12 visits cost about $74,000 in hotel bills.
Official guests of the government in the past two years have included the head of the International Red Cross, the head of the International Monetary Fund, and Bill and Melinda Gates, acting in their capacities of co-chairs of their charitable foundations.
Melinda Gates’ visit was the cheapest of the two years at just $420 for her one-day visit to Ottawa on May 9.
Also among the cheapest of visiting dignitaries to host: the Aga Khan, the philanthropic spiritual leader of the world’s Ismaili Muslims.
The Aga Khan was in Ottawa last May for a daylong visit with Trudeau, and Canada covered $2,500 in hospitality costs.
Trudeau, of course, would vacation later in the year at the Aga Khan’s private island in the Bahamas, a vacation for which the federal taxpayer paid at least $127,000, according to documents tabled in the House of Commons.
In 2016, Embassy News, using access-to-information laws, reported that the Harper government spent a total of $10.6 million between 2006 and 2014 hosting foreign VIPs.