Canadian Politicians to Visit Vatican City

This article was last updated on April 16, 2022

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Government correspondents have reported that a delegation of Canadian politicians, including senators and government and opposition MPs, will be visiting the Vatican this week to attend a ceremony hosted to promote Gérald Cyprien Lacroix to the College of Cardinals. The trip is yet another taxpayer-funded visit to the Holy See for a high-profile Conservative senator who’s also the Speaker of the upper chamber. The trip has come at a time when Canada is on the lookout for a new ambassador to the Holy See.

56-year-old archbishop of Quebec, Lacroix, is among the 19 men named cardinals by Pope Francis in January. The ceremony to elevate the new cardinals, known as a consistory, will be held Saturday at St. Peter’s Basilica. The Canadian delegation will be led by Infrastructure and Intergovernmental Affairs Minister and Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s Quebec lieutenant, Denis Lebel. Whereas other delegation members include two other Conservative MPs, Senate Speaker Noël Kinsella (a Conservative), fellow Conservative Sen. Suzanne Fortin-Duplessis, three opposition MPs and representatives from Quebec.

The federal government refrained from revealing an estimated cost of the trip. Whereas, according to the records of Conservative senator and Speaker, Kinsella, it is his sixth taxpayer-funded trip to the Vatican over the past seven years, each of which must have cost at least several thousands of dollars, while most of them were a part of broader European visits. Previously, Kinsella also led a parliamentary delegation to the Vatican in September 2013.