Prime Minister Mark Carney’s first full year in office produced a taxpayer-funded in-flight catering bill of $524,815.04 across 28 official flights and $472,293.29 in hotel accommodation costs for six trips, according to a House of Commons response. The question was asked on October 27, 2025 and answered on January 26, 2026, covering travel from March 14, 2025 onward.
The Department of National Defence response covers in-flight catering. Spread across 28 flights, it works out to about $18,743 per trip. The department said those charges include not just food and non-alcoholic beverages, but also catering handling and delivery, storage, cleaning, disposal of international waste, airport taxes, administrative fees, security charges, and local taxes.
The largest single tab in the released figures was the combined UAE and G20 Johannesburg swing at $158,986.43, tied to a 55-person delegation. Other standout charges included $93,780.18 for the Vatican trip tied to Pope Leo XIV’s inaugural mass, $60,268.31 for the March 17 to 18 UK trip, $49,043.37 for Brussels, and $33,903.37 for Mexico City.
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The May 5, 2025 Ottawa-Washington trip cost $21,158 in catering, while the October Washington run cost $16,824.65 for a reported 55 people. Reporting on the October leg said catering was nearly 11 times the fuel cost for that segment.
The department further said its response was based on available data as of December 12, 2025 and warned that final catering costs were not yet available in all cases because some invoices had not yet been received or reconciled.
Global Affairs Canada also disclosed hotel accommodation costs totaling $472,293.29 for six trips: Paris at $39,415.12, London at $36,288.10, Washington at $48,358.50, the Holy See at $133,372.60, The Hague at $141,069.33, and Brussels at $73,789.64. The agency said it was still processing expenses for remaining visits and could not yet provide accommodation costs incurred to date.
That means the publicly disclosed travel perks across these two categories already reached at least $997,108.33, and that is before counting fuel, aircraft operations, crew costs, or undisclosed security-related spending.
Canada’s Food Price Report 2026 projects that the average family of four will spend $17,571.79 on food this year, up as much as $994.63 from 2025, with overall food prices forecast to rise 4% to 6%. The reported annual in-flight catering total is therefore equal to about 29.9 years of grocery spending for that benchmark family.
Food Banks Canada reported nearly 2.2 million visits to food banks in March 2025, the highest monthly total on record and 5.2% above 2024 levels. It also said food bank usage has doubled since 2019, while shelter, food, and transportation costs have risen faster than wage growth in recent years.
Former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s six-day Indo-Pacific trip in September 2023 faced scrutiny due to its high catering costs, amounting to more than $223,000. The catering costs were initially estimated at around $180,000 but later revealed to be significantly higher.
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