Will Justin Trudeau show up for work on Monday?

After his grueling 8 day vacation to India, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau worked for a total of 9 days before beginning another vacation.

Actually, his vacation in India was followed by two days of personal downtime, February 25 and February 26, meaning he extended his vacation while the MPs that were on the Indian extravaganza were back in the House of Commons on the 26th.

After that 10 day vacation it was a solid 9 days of hard work, like sitting around and pretending to be a scientist with Bill Nye the not quite a scientist guy. There were awards to be picked up for being a feminist and of course, money to be raised from wealthy Liberals.

Those were all agenda items posted, not a lot of actual hard work. Then his March break vacation began on March 10. Now his itinerary said that he was in Ottawa but visiting Belgian journalists were told that when Trudeau began his “please love me tour” of aluminum and steel plants that he had come back from Florida to do so.

See it leaked out that when Trudeau decided to give the Belgian Royals a pass, the 100 business leaders they brought, plus the academics from Belgium’s top universities, it wasn’t because he had planned his tour of factories before they got here but instead it was because he had planned on being in Florida with the wife and kids over March break.

Look, thousands and thousands of Canadian families were in Florida for March break and I would have loved to have gone myself but most of those families didn’t just get back from a lavish family vacation to India.

Now according to the Belgians, despite Trudeau’s itinerary for March 10 and March 11 saying he was in Ottawa, the PM had actually flown back from Florida late Sunday and could not squeeze in any time for the Belgian delegation before leaving for a tour of factories in Liberal ridings which I am sure had nothing to do with his re-election next year.

On that point, if Trudeau had wanted to show support for steel and aluminum workers he could have done so with a simple jaunt and photo op to Hamilton when he was in Toronto the previous Thursday or he could have visited the Regina plant that he visited last week when he was in that city collecting money from big Liberals on Thursday night and on Friday holding official business.

Instead Trudeau made a big show of visiting four Liberal ridings in Quebec, Ontario and Saskatchewan where I am sure they are worried about losing seats in the next election.

So he flew back from Florida, did his tour and flew back down late last Wednesday night and returned late Sunday.

Where was he staying?

We don’t know. That is the kind of information that Americans know about their presidents at all times but when Trudeau goes away we are told to trust him and that it is down time. Then we find out that he was off on the Aga Khan’s private island and he dodged and weaved on answering questions for months on that one.

So Canadians can be forgiven for not having much faith on this file when it comes to Prime Minister Trudeau.

When I started hearing that he was in Fort Lauderdale and then also rumours of he and his family staying on a yacht I called the PMO to ask for information. I asked three simple questions.

1. Is the PM staying in the Fort Lauderdale area?

2. Is the PM staying on a yacht?

3. If staying on the yacht, who owns it?

I received an email from a spokesperson asking me to call them and they offered to provide information on background, no attribution. The contact assured me that the PM and his family were not staying on a yacht nor had they been on a yacht. The family I was told was staying in a home they had rented.

As for what part of Florida they were staying in, that would remain secret beyond somewhere in the State of Florida.

Not a lot of info, thus room for rumours, like the yacht one.

As for whether the PM will show up for work on Monday, it turns out he will. Unlike the trip to India, the PM does not need a vacation from his vacation and will deliver a speech and attend question period on Monday.