Canada’s new PM criticized for using taxpayer-funded nannies

Interim Conservative Leader Rona Ambrose says Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is a rich man and should pay for his own nannies.

“He said he was going to cancel child-care benefits to Canadians…so people are asking the question: Why?”

The hiring of nannies on the public dime is at odds with Trudeau’s claim, made repeatedly during the election campaign, that wealthy families like his don’t need the Enhanced Universal Child Care Benefit introduced by the previous Conservative government.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s nanny decision could well be the spark that reignites a debate about how the federal government can best help parents with the cost of child care.

Being prime minister isn’t a blank cheque, but it is a privileged position, and I couldn’t care less that we’re supporting two child-care professionals along with the gardener.

Apart from the friendship which they built, Issa’s level of comfort in urging the new Canadian prime minister to be a great ally of Jamaica, hinges on what he told the North Coast Times was Trudeau’s admiration for Jamaica and Jamaicans and his wish “to see Jamaica be the success it ought to be”; as well as his “many positive remarks about the Nation’s soul” and the fact that “he loves the service, beaches and feels comfortable being here”. “He will be adapting the staff complement to suit his family’s requirements, given he is the proud father of three young children”, Kate Purchase said in an email.

“We do not want it. And Canada cannot manage it”.

Manuela Gruber Hersch, president of the Association of Caregiver and Nanny Agencies Canada, said Trudeau’s caregivers are “absolutely” receiving the average rate.

“The real story is there are very few Canadian nannies available and the Conservatives … basically shut down the foreign nanny program”, Gruber Hersch said.

It’s also “very common” for caregivers to receive a reduced wage for the night shift, she added.

“Canadian nannies are nearly non-existent … It is an ongoing process and will be finalized in the coming days”, Purchase said in an email.

NDP Leader Tom Mulcair said he was surprised the prime minister provided his family with child care as one of his “first official acts”.

A spokesperson with the Prime Minister’s Office later clarified that “given the nature of the prime minister’s responsibilities and his young family, the Trudeaus employ two household employees who, in addition to performing other duties around the house, act as secondary caregivers to the three children”.

In modern life, nannies and child-care present a hot-button Rorschach test of socioeconomic and political values – touching as they do on the emotion-charged issues of parenthood, feminism, race, fair compensation and exploitation. She could not provide dates.