Let Them Not Eat Cake

Or beef brisket, as the case may be:

New records show that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s six-day Indo-Pacific trip in September 2023 had a catering bill of more than $223,000.

The trip, in which Trudeau met with business leaders in Singapore and the president of Indonesia as well as attending the G20 summit in India, cost nearly $2 million.

The catering costs had previously been pegged closer to $180K but a response to an order paper question in the House of Commons reveals the final tally was $223,234.

 

Yep.

 

I'll just leave these here:

A new report from Food Banks Canada suggests the number of Canadians living in poverty may be higher than previously thought, with the organization estimating 25 per cent could fall under this category because they cannot afford two or more household essentials.

The report, released Tuesday, introduced what the authors call a material deprivation index (MDI) — a metric used in Europe to measure a poverty level standard of living.

Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union, says the MDI distinguishes between individuals who cannot afford a certain good or service, and those who do not have this good or service because they don’t want it.

“We should continue to prioritize poverty reduction,” Richard Matern, Food Banks Canada director of research, told Global News. “Many more people are feeling the impacts of poverty.”

 

(Sidebar: oh, that's profound.) 

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In addition, surveys were revealing that an alarming proportion of households seemed to be experiencing a poverty-level standard of living, much higher than the approximately 10 percent estimated based on the MBM,” the authors wrote.