Trudeau’s cross-Canada tour might include northern stops

Sophie Grégoire, the wife of Liberal Party leader Justin Trudeau, Trudeau, holding his youngest child Hadrien, and Liberal candidate Hunter Tootoo walk into Iqaluit’s Rotary Park during Trudeau’s last visit to Iqaluit Oct. 10. (PHOTO BY STEVE DUCHARME)

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is hoping to reconnect with Canadians during a town-hall style tour of the country in the coming weeks and that tour may include stops in the North.

“We are hoping to include the North in the Prime Minister’s upcoming tour, and are currently working to make that happen,” read a Jan. 9 email from the Prime Minister’s Office. “Details will be confirmed later on.”

Maclean’s magazine reported on the tour Jan. 7, suggesting then that Trudeau was attempting to regain support from average Canadians after recent reports of questionable pay-for-access Liberal fundraising tactics and hobnobbing with affluent donors.

The PMO confirmed that the tour will include Ontario, Quebec, British Columbia, and the Prairies with a “mix of town hall-style venues, coffee shops, church basements,” the email said.

“We see this tour as part of a concerted effort to remain connected to Canadians, at home in their communities. The Prime Minister wants to hear from them on how they are feeling at the start of 2017, what their concerns and anxieties are, and what we can do to help alleviate that.”

Details and dates of the tour have not yet been released but Maclean’s is reporting the tour is expected to start at end of next week.

Trudeau last visited Iqaluit in October 2015 during a pre-election campaign stop to promote Liberal candidate Hunter Tootoo.

Tootoo later quit the cabinet and the Liberal caucus over an “inappropriate” relationship with a junior staffer and entered addictions treatment. Still the MP for Nunavut, Tootoo now sits as an Independent in the House of Commons.

Trudeau and United States President Barack Obama issued a joint announcement on Arctic issues just before Christmas on Dec. 20, promising, among other things, an “indefinite” moratorium on future offshore oil and gas exploration licences in the U.S. and the Canadian Arctic.

Details on Trudeau’s potential January stops in the Arctic have not yet been finalized, but the Prime Minister would be expected to field questions about that decision, and others, contained in the Dec. 20 announcement.