Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has been offered the gift of his own likeness some 17 times since becoming prime minister, including once by the president of China. The portraits and photographs, along with a myriad of vases, wine bottles and Star Wars paraphernalia, are among more than 400 gifts worth more than $200 that Mr. Trudeau has declared to the federal ethics commissioner since late 2015. Among the representations of “myself,” as typically described in Mr. Trudeau’s revelations, are a stamp from Chinese President Xi Jinping and a goatskin painting donated by Abiy Ahmed Ali, the prime minister of Ethiopia. There is also a 3D crystal collage of Mr Trudeau and former US President Barack Obama, as well as cut-outs of him and his wife, Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, both donated by Canadian artists. The Prime Minister’s office, when asked, did not specifically answer the question of what is being done with all those images of Mr. Trudeau. For example, does one hang – like the oil painting titled “Happy Moments” – in his residence at Rideau Cottage? They simply said that some gifts are kept or stored while others are donated or forfeited. Roy Norton, chief of protocol at Global Affairs Canada from 2016 to 2019, told The Canadian Press that he doesn’t read anything into the portrait trend other than a desire to “make it more personal and less expensive.” Toward the same goal, Mr. Norton said in an interview, the Canadian protocol office will try to match Mr. Trudeau’s gifts with the recipient’s tastes. Former German Chancellor Angela Merkel was a fan of Bach, so she got a concerto box set by Glenn Gould, she said, while one of Trudeau’s gifts to former US President Donald Trump was a 1980s photo of Trump with Pierre Elliott Trudeau in New York. “Trump likes his pictures, so this was a gift that seemed to be very well received,” Mr Norton said. The president told the media at the time: “What a wonderful picture.” Mr. Norton explained that gift exchanges are a highly orchestrated bureaucratic affair, adding that Canadian prime ministers would not receive any gifts at all because of the potential for negative attention. “No leader of a democratic country is interested in being violated or having to spend a fraction of the news cycle defending a gift received or a gift given,” he said. Mr. Trudeau has received 110 gifts from other countries’ heads of state or government since becoming prime minister, an analysis of public records shows, with a significant drop during the pandemic as travel became much less frequent. Jordan’s King Abdullah II was the most generous of the foreign dignitaries, presenting Mr Trudeau with 10 gifts, from a handmade leather saddle to “pots of plant sculpture” to jars of honey. The king even left a box of skin care products for Mr. Trudeau while on a personal visit to Canada last year, during which the prime minister’s office says the two did not meet. French President Emmanuel Macron came in second with seven gifts for the prime minister, including a limited edition Star Wars X-wing pen – a gift that may have topped Mr Obama’s 2016 offer for a film script The Force Awakenssigned by director JJ Abrams. More than 140 gifts Mr. Trudeau said were actually for his wife or their children, including scooters and plush toys of Bo “The First Dog” given by Mr. Obama. And several dozen consisted of an “introduction” to various designer clothing, accessories and jewelry, such as a pair of fighting gloves offered by Rival Boxing Gear in 2018. Still others were swag bags containing various branded items, including a Jack Daniel’s T-shirt and hoodie offered with a bottle of whiskey. Mr Trudeau has had to forfeit 20 gifts in recent years, including three of his paintings, an Arabic cloak and a Seiko watch from the Japanese prime minister, because they were worth more than $1,000. He reimbursed part of the cost of two gifts so he could keep them – an e-bike offered by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang in 2016 and an engraving by Inuit artist Annie Pootoogook from the president of Nunavik Tunngavik Inc. in 2017. He also received from Li a Huawei Mate 10 Pro Android phone in 2017. To avoid raising suspicions about Chinese electronic devices, Mr. Norton said the RCMP scans everything the prime minister receives and sometimes even removes items looking for anything compromising. And a spokeswoman for Mr. Trudeau said all gifts sent to him are approved. The ethics disclosures do not include items given to Mr. Trudeau worth less than $200, such as trinkets and letters he often receives from the general public. The Morning Update and Afternoon Update newsletters are written by Globe editors, giving you a concise summary of the day’s most important headlines. Sign up today.
