Poilievre introduces motion to suspend Trudeau's pay until he returns to work

The Conservative Shadow Finance Minister Pierre Poilievre has submitted a motion to the Finance Committee that would suspend Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's pay until he returns to work.

As first reported by Brian Lilley in the Toronto Sun, the prime minister has been lapping up the summer sun in Ontario. As of Thursday, Trudeau has taken five personal days in a row.

What may make this particularly irritating for Canadians is that Trudeau is choosing to take this holiday in the middle of a pandemic, economic collapse and an existential scandal.

On top of this, Trudeau decided to skip Andrew Scheer's last day in the House of Commons as leader of the Conservative Party—a move that has been criticized as disrespectful.

As a result of all this, Pierre Poilievre is adamant on pushing this motion through, saying "the chair [of the Finance Committee] tried to shut it down. I will bring it back."

In his motion, Poilievre wrote that "the prime minister has taken off 20 days in six weeks—meaning nearly half the calendar days have been days off."

No other leader has chosen to follow in Justin Trudeau's footsteps: NDP leader Jagmeet Singh, Andrew Scheer and Bloc Quebecois leader Yves-Francois Blanchet are all worked yesterday, regardless of the prime minister's attendance.

Journalist Alex Pierson tweeted at the prime minister, saying "today you should show up  for work and do your damned job. No other elected official in this county is vacationing."

Last month, Trudeau was criticized for taking a personal day during the height of the WE scandal.  Scheer said that Trudeau was taking this vacation to avoid parliamentary scrutiny, saying "instead of showing up to answer questions, as he said he would last week, he's taking a personal day today."

Justin Trudeau has been criticized before for his Liberal use of personal days. In 2018, the Conservative Party created a website that highlighted whether the prime minister was on a vacation or not.

Similarly, in June of last year, the prime minister was lampooned for taking a personal day when he should've been attending the repatriation of a fallen Canadian soldier.