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Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was asked on Wednesday how it felt being the first Prime Minister to be "found guilty of a federal crime."
Taking questions during a live broadcast of a Q &A session at a town-hall meeting in Lower Sackville, N.S., one woman asked: “I was just curious how you feel about being the first Prime Minister ever found guilty of a federal crime."
After joking that they clearly hadn’t vetted the questions beforehand, Trudeau responded by asking “what crime is that?”
The questioner said she was referring to the vacation Trudeau took with his family to Aga Khan’s private island in the Bahamas in 2016. The issue was investigated by the ethics commissioner.
The question and Trudeau's response begin 37 minutes into the Facebook video.
“First of all, there’s a level at which shows that our system works,” he begins. “We have an ethics commissioner who is there to ensure that parliamentarians, all elected officials, including the prime minister, follow the rules and make sure that they’re exercising the responsibilities to serve their country in the right way.”
“What we saw through this situation was, yes, though I consider him to be a long-time family friend, the ethics commissioner points out, quite rightly, that there should be a higher bar for friendship for someone with the position and the responsibilities of the prime minister.”
He goes on to say that, moving forward, all of his vacations will be cleared beforehand.
“If I had to do it all again, I would have worked with the ethics commissioner from the outset even though this is a friend, and we would have followed the recommendations that the ethics commissioner gave on this, whatever they were - and you can be sure moving forwards that that is exactly what will happen.”
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