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Mind you, those airfare costs will be at the rate of equivalent economy airfare for a Calgary-Ottawa flight and not the $5,000-an-hour that the Department of National Defence says it costs to operate the RCAF Challenger executive jet that took Trudeau to Calgary and will take him back to Ottawa.

Canadian security agencies do not want prime ministers on commercial aircraft and prefer they use military jets and military pilots. But that is not a hard-and-fast rule, particularly when there are elections.

During a general election campaign, an incumbent prime minister — like other party leaders — will campaign using a chartered commercial jet flown by commercial pilots. The cost of that aircraft is borne exclusively by political parties and not by the taxpayer.

Moreover, Trudeau, during his short time in office, has already flown at least twice on a non-military aircraft. As the National Post first reported, during his Christmas holiday, he and his family used the personal helicopter of the Aga Khan to make the 110-km journey between Nassau and the Aga Khan’s private island in the Bahamas.

If the party had to account for the full cost of flying Trudeau to Calgary and back on the Challenger — Trudeau has no publicly announced official events there other than the campaign appearances — the bill could easily top $35,000.

That would go against the national party’s anticipated spending limit of about $450,000 for the five by-elections currently underway. (In addition to the two in Calgary, there is one each in Markham, Ottawa, and Montreal.)

All federal parties do not have to report details of spending in any by-election in 2017 until June 30, 2018.

Campaigning prime ministers and campaigning party leaders are also exempt from the costs of the security detail assigned to protect them, Elections Canada has ruled. Those costs, be it during a general election or a by-election, come from the RCMP’s budget which, in turn, comes from the government’s general revenue fund.

Stephen Harper never campaigned publicly in any of 29 by-election contests held during the nine years while he was prime minister. But he did show up in a 2010 by-election in Winnipeg North with a brief appearance at the Conservative candidate’s headquarters.

That 2010 appearance, though it was captured on a video posted to YouTube, was not public, no reporters were invited to witness it let alone even told about it, and Harper spoke only to campaign staff and not to voters.

The Conservative Party later claimed a “miscellaneous expense” that day of about $450.

The party did not respond Monday to questions about expenses associated with Harper’s 2010 by-election appearance..