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Members of Parliament are required to report travel costing over $200 that is paid for by an outside group to the ethics commissioner. The National Post reviewed records of MPs’ sponsored travel from 2004-2016. Records from before 2004 cannot be removed from the House of Commons but Jeremy LeBlanc, the principal clerk of journals at the House of Commons, checked the records from 2001-2003 and said there was no travel sponsored by the Trudeau Foundation during that period.

In an emailed statement, the foundation’s executive director, Élise Comtois, said the charity always covers the cost of travel and accommodation for speakers at its events. While this is the first time the foundation has covered travel for a sitting MP, Comtois noted the foundation often invites politicians from various parties to speak, including Conservative MP Michael Chong in 2015, NDP MP Linda Duncan in 2012 and Green Party leader Elizabeth May in 2011.

“We seek to provide a diversity of opinions and perspectives at all of our events given the foundation’s core mission,” Comtois said. “When travel is involved we offer to cover travel and accommodation costs within reason.”

John Brassard, Conservative deputy ethics critic, said Virani could have used government resources to pay for his trip.

“The prime minister stood up in the House of Commons and said he’s got nothing to do with the Trudeau Foundation, that it’s an arms-length body, it’s not affiliated with government at all. Listen, Mr. Virani is a parliamentary secretary. If he needed to go to this conference so badly, he didn’t need the Trudeau Foundation to pay for it.”

A letter sent to Virani by the foundation indicates it spent $852.63 on airfare, $385.44 on meals, $1,143.60 on hospitality and $378.45 on transportation (taxis). The letter includes a list of directors of the Trudeau Foundation. At the bottom of that list is the prime minister’s brother, Alexandre Trudeau.