Demand grows for Harry and Meghan to reimburse Canadian taxpayers who footed million-dollar security bill
After Prince Harry and Meghan Markle are officially no longer part of the royal family, calls are growing louder demanding the couple to refund the Canadian taxpayers' money which was used to foot their security bill when they were staying in their Vancouver Island home.
Aaron Wudrick, the federal director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) — which had launched a petition, back in late January, calling for "no taxpayer support" for the couple that racked up over 100,000 signatures in a matter of days — said that his country's people were still angry at the fact that they had to end up paying the Duke and Duchess of Sussex's security, which cost around $7.9 million per year.
“I’ve got a surprising number of people who are still upset about the fact that they have to pay anything at all. They think that Canadian taxpayers should be reimbursed for the security they’ve paid up to this point," he told Express.
Wudrick added that more than anything, Canadian residents were outraged at having being kept in the dark about the fact that they would end up paying to keep the royal couple safe. Although there were unconfirmed reports of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau assuring the Queen that his government would be footing the security bill for Harry and Meghan's 24/7 protection, circulating in the media back in January, Trudeau kept mum on the rumors.
“No explanation was given and that’s the troubling thing. It’s one thing to spend money and if there is a difference of opinion about it, then the government can defend its position.
But they refused to even answer and that’s really not acceptable when they knew all along that we were paying. We had asked specifically for that clarification and it has been refused for months on end. They should have told us that. They were asked many, many times by the media here over those months and they never answered. There was no reason not to do that," Wudrick said.
Finally, at the end of February, Canada’s Public Safety minister Bill Blair confirmed that the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) had been providing the couple with round the clock security facilities since their arrival in the country "intermittently since November 2019". Although Blair attributed the move to International Protected Persons Act which he claimed entitled Harry and Meghan to the state’s protection — which was set to end once Megxit kicked in — the admission was met with an intense backlash from the public.
After Harry and Meghan Markle moved to Los Angeles from their Vancouver Island home at the end of last month, POTUS Donald Trump announced that the USA would not be taking on the couple's $24 million security bill after they stepped down as senior members of the royal family.
Trump took to Twitter to share, "I am a great friend and admirer of the Queen & the United Kingdom. It was reported that Harry and Meghan, who left the Kingdom, would reside permanently in Canada. Now they have left Canada for the U.S. however, the U.S. will not pay for their security protection. They must pay!"
A source close to the pair shared that Harry and Meghan had never asked the government to foot their bill in the first place. "The Duke and Duchess of Sussex have no plans to ask the US government for security resources," the spokesperson said.