Mark Carney is on holidays. The government won't say where

Prime Minister Mark Carney is retreating this week for vacation, but the federal government isn’t saying where. All that has been revealed is that Carney is staying somewhere in the National Capital Region. “As he does so, he will remain in close coordination with his team and officials on several priorities, including ongoing negotiations on the economic and security relationship between Canada and the United States,” Carney’s spokespeople told reporters in an email. Carney could be at Harrington Lake, the country retreat set aside for Canadian prime ministers in the picturesque Gatineau Hills north of Ottawa, or he could be at his personal cottage in the Val des Monts, Que., area. “For security reasons, we won’t be disclosing his exact location,” said spokesperson Audrey Champoux in an email to National Post. Harrington Lake sits on a 13-acre property. It has both the main cottage and a farmhouse and is used for regular visits and official functions. Since 2018, the National Capital Commission, which manages the property, has spent $8.7 million on renovations. It was first acquired in the late 1950s as a personal retreat for then-prime minister John Diefenbaker. The House of Commons has risen for the summer, but Canada remains engaged in tense negotiations with the United States surrounding trades and Carney, still in his first months in office, has been dealing with bullish premiers, including Alberta’s Danielle Smith. The two bumped into each other at the Calgary Stampede this weekend and exchanged pleasantries after Carney tried — and failed — to fry and flip a beautiful flapjack. While the secrecy around Carney’s vacation plans isn’t unusual — in 2015, Canadians only found out where his predecessor, Justin Trudeau, was holidaying because the celebrity tabloid TMZ published photos — other nations’ leaders regularly inform the public where they are. During the Trudeau years, extravagant vacations — and the concomitant secrecy — caused considerable controversy. Most notably, Mary Dawson, then Canada’s ethics commissioner, found that Trudeau broke a number of rules when he vacationed on the private Bahamian island of the Aga Khan, the late Karim al-Husseini. Trudeau further courted controversy in 2021 when he vacationed in Tofino, B.C., with his family on the first National Day for Truth and Reconciliation; his official itinerary had him listed as staying in Ottawa that day. However, politicians weren’t always so cagey. The Canadian Press reported than when Brian Mulroney was prime minister, he routinely informed reporters where he was vacationing. Former prime minister Jean Chrétien broke from the practice, causing what the media described as a “furor” in 1993 when his office refused to follow protocol and disclose his week-long holiday at Florida’s PGA National Golf Resort and Spa. Yet, holidays have long caused controversy: Free vacations at the hands of the wealthy Irving family caused a major problem in 2003 for Chrétien, who said politicians had every right to accept freebie holidays. “You know, we have the right to accept hospitality. I do accept hospitality once in a while. I visit my son-in-law, who has a lake, and I fish with him and I’m there with my grandson. Perhaps I should confess that,” Chrétien said at the time. (His son-in-law is billionaire Andre Desmarais.) It’s not just Liberals, either. Prime minister Stephen Harper’s Labour Day visit to New York in 2011 — he saw a New York Yankees game and a Broadway show with his family — cost taxpayers some $45,000 and Peter MacKay, then the defence minister, had a military helicopter pick him and his buddies up during a fishing trip in July 2010.

• Jesse Kline: Following 'most consequential election,' Carney takes extended summer vacation
• Chris Selley: Team Trudeau has learned nothing from Aga Khan debacle

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