| RINGS FAMILIAR — Spending the first week of 2024 on the defense over a freebie vacation abroad fit for a millionaire while Canadians endure a domestic affordability crunch is not really a politically auspicious way to ring in the new year. But that’s how the Liberals started it. Maybe week two will be an improvement. — Recall: PMO spinners somehow managed to actually drag the news out about JUSTIN TRUDEAU’s annual Christmas getaway over a few more days, with a sudden “clarification” the family was not paying for the stay after first saying it was. In the only relatable moment, the plane borked — a recurring problem for the PM — stretching the story out again. The controversy dialed up when GLEN MCGREGOR added up the cost of a stay at the luxe Prospect Estate. It had Conservative pundit NICK KOUVALIS speculating on social media about whether being tactless about a luxury vacation while so low in the polls is a sign Trudeau is thinking of throwing in the towel. — Memory lane: For Trudeau, the estate is far from an unusual destination. It’s been a family vacation spot since he was a kid. PIERRE TRUDEAU routinely made news for stays at the estate dating to the mid-1970s back when he was prime minister. He’d vacation there when it was owned by family friend Sir HAROLD MITCHELL, a British Conservative politician and millionaire industrialist. — Rewind: Reporters and photographers were always warned to stay away and the ensuing newspaper stories were usually just a few sentences. The Ottawa Citizen mentioned one trip briefly in its “People” section in 1978, just under an item about JOHN WAYNE’s heart surgery. While those stories did not reveal the vacay costs or come with any photos, Trudeau senior attracted controversy for the Jamaican jaunts at least a few times. Canadian Press ran a story highlighting that same ’78 getaway, listing the high-profile politicians heading south for March vacations and ignoring then-finance minister JEAN CHRÉTIEN’s pleas to support the economy by traveling domestically. In ’83, a Windsor Star editorial titled “Reality escapes him” slammed PET for coming back from vacationing in Jamaica to tell “Canada’s taxpayers they did not get any tax breaks in this month’s budget because they would spend part of it buying imported goods or travelling abroad.” — Political re-run: Color commentating as Trudeau vacations devolve into scandal is kind of a national sport, but the combination of the tab on this latest one and the connection to PETER GREEN, who owns the estate, and his family, which donated to the Pierre Elliott Trudeau Foundation, has “2023 repeat” written all over it. La Presse’s MELANIE MARQUIS even began her story last week with, “New year, new trip, same story.” It echoes Trudeau’s holiday there a year prior that similarly generated outrage when the C$160,000 cost of the trip to taxpayers surfaced. Interim Ethics Commissioner KONRAD VON FINCKENSTEIN cleared the recent trip, but it’s bound to haunt the House in talking-point form when Parliament revs back up. — Watch for: The inevitable Opposition Order Paper question seeking to disclose details surrounding government costs for the flight and security detail, and the repeat government lines about the PM paying the equivalent of a commercial airline ticket. — Could be worse: The bar for a politically rough Jamaican vacation for a Canadian PM is actually pretty high. In 1968, LESTER PEARSON rushed back from his holiday in the sun to Ottawa when his minority government lost a confidence vote in the Commons over a tax measure. | 
