While people travelled from across Canada and indeed the globe to attend the legendary Calgary Stampede, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau opted for a BBQ in Toronto instead. “Don’t feel offended, Calgary, that Justin Trudeau is hiding from you,” Opposition leader Pierre Poilievre joked while speaking at Conservative Party of Canada Barbeque the first Saturday of the Stampede. The Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), just prior to the 112th Stampede kicked off the first Friday, In July confirmed Trudeau would be skipping one of Canada’s most famous cultural events due to what his office called scheduling conflicts. E-mails obtained by The Globe and Mail show staff discussing whether Trudeau would attend the Stampede, and ultimately establish that he would not. Indeed, it was decided Trudeau would not be going to Calgary at all during the 10-day event. While no reason was given as per Trudeau’s failure to appear at the 2024 Stampede, it was noted the prime minister would be attending events in “other regions.”"This could be the beginning of a bunker mentality," said pollster Nik Nanos, per CTV, indicating the prime minister’s plummeting popularity could be the reason he does not wish to attend the Calgary event. Trudeau last week made a four-day trip to Washington for the NATO summit, where he delivered a keynote speech on climate change. However, on the weekend, the prime minister returned to Ontario and attended a string of political and cultural events, including a (non-Stampede-related) barbeque hosted by Liberal MP Iqra Khalid. .Trudeau alongside Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland also attended the Fiesta Extravaganza Filipino Festival in Toronto. .Trudeau then joined Punjabi singer Diljit Dosanjh onstage at the Roger Centre, where he called diversity "our super power.".In the week before the Stampede, Trudeau appeared at Pride events in Ottawa and Toronto, and danced wildly at the Taste of Asia event in Markham, ON, where pictures circulated of the prime minister with a Chinese agent. The agent was cropped from photos Trudeau posted himself. He spent Canada Day in St. John’s, NL, where the Memorial Day repatriation of Newfoundland and Labrador’s unknown soldier was celebrated and answered questions from the CBC on the Liberals’ epic byelection loss in Toronto days earlier. .Aside from the pandemic years, Trudeau has attended the Stampede since 2012, three years before he was elected prime minister. Normally he attends his only Calgary MP George Chahal’s breakfast — however, Chahal, among a litany of other former and current Liberal parliamentarians, have called for the party to regroup from the Toronto byelection loss to regroup with a national, in-person caucus meeting. In early June, he made an unannounced visit to Calgary for a Federation of Canadian Municipalities meeting where he defended his administration’s carbon tax.
