Trudeau’s Regina events cancelled: PMO

The Prime Minister’s Office has confirmed that all of Justin Trudeau’s events scheduled in Regina today have been cancelled.

A communications person with the office, Eleanore Catenaro, didn’t say why.

“We cancelled all events in Regina today, and the Prime Minister returned to Ottawa for private meetings,” she said in a follow-up email.

Trudeau had originally planned to attend a public event at a local Canadian Tire store in Regina’s south end; he had also planned to deliver a speech to a Liberal fundraising event Tuesday evening at the city’s Conexus Arts Centre.

Instead, Trudeau will stay in Ottawa.

The news comes one day after Treasury Board president Jane Philpott resigned from the federal cabinet. On Monday, she said she’s lost confidence in the way the Trudeau government has dealt with the SNC-Lavalin affair.

She resigned almost a month after former attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould resigned from federal cabinet. Wilson-Raybould has alleged that the Prime Minister’s Office improperly pressured her to stop a criminal prosecution of the Montreal engineering firm.

A tweet being widely shared on Twitter claimed that the local Canadian Tire store in south Regina had received an “outpouring of calls detesting the support of the PM.” The franchise owner of the store declined to comment when contacted by 980 CJME.

The company’s corporate office in Toronto issued the following statement, via email: “The Prime Minister changed his schedule and is no longer visiting Regina. Please direct any questions related to the event to his office.”

— With files from 980 CJME’s Andrew Shepherd and the Canadian Press