BURST
Prime Minister Mark Carney spent almost $160,000 on airplane food during a single trip last November, according to documents seen by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
The advocacy group reports that the PM and his “entourage” dined on chicken chasseur (French chicken stew), Chilean sea bass and “death by chocolate” dessert during a single trip last year, spending a total of $159,800 on meals.
Other information in the records from the trip shows that $90 was spent on orange juice, $45 on apple juice, $30 on whole fruit, $11 on hot sauce, and $176.25 on a case of 500ml bottles of water.
This information comes from government records obtained by CTF that reveal the in-flight catering bill was racked up during one week-long trip to Athens, Abu Dhabi, Johannesburg and the Canary Islands in November 2025.
Carney was accompanied by a 55-person entourage, meaning the food came in at a cost of $2,850 per passenger, according to CTF.
Menus obtained by the CTF showed that other items served to passengers included breakfast options of sundried tomato and mozzarella omelette or French toast with cinnamon and berries, while main courses were beef tenderloin with pepper sauce, chicken supreme with morel sauce and potato gratin dauphinois, and slow roasted cod with tarragon cream sauce.
For dessert, options included tiramisu, cheesecake and a parfait with two types of chocolate mousse and maraschino cherries.
“Carney spent more money on airplane food during one trip than the average family will spend on groceries in almost a decade,” Franco Terrazzano, CTF federal director, said in a press release on Wednesday.
“Carney keeps promising to spend less, but if he isn’t willing to cut back on airplane food, then what will he spend less on?”
The CTF cites a CTV report from December 2025 that estimated that the average Canadian family of four will send $17,571.79 on food this year. That’s roughly $140,000 less than Carney spent on in-flight catering for the week-long November trip.
And the high cost cannot be justified by the 55-person entourage, the CTF argues, because during a trip to Poland, Germany and Latvia in August 2025, Carney, along with 62 passengers, spent only $9,270 on airplane food, according to government records .
Meanwhile, more government documents show that a 13-person trip led by the chief of defence staff in January 2025 spent just $2,348.76 on in-flight catering for a 12-day trip. The same document revealed that several day-long trips taken by members of the government, including Carney, didn’t bill taxpayers a single dollar for catering.
“If other politicians and bureaucrats can travel without racking up these outrageous bills, then Carney can spend less while flying abroad,” Terrazzano said.
These latest figures are not the first time Carney has come under fire for in-flight spending.
In May, the CTF revealed that just shy of $200,000 was spent feeding the PM and government officials who accompanied him on three out-of-country flights in 2025.
The most costly of these trips was to Rome in May 2025, which rang in at almost $94,000 . Menu items included veal escalope, herb and smoked Gouda omelets, crème brûlée and chocolate mousse.
And in February, records from the Department of National Defence showed that Carney had spent a total of $300,194.07 on in-flight catering for nine trips between March and November, 2025.
In total, Carney spent nearly $1 million on airplane food across 14 flights during his first year as prime minister, as reported last month by Toronto Sun .
Meanwhile, the CTF points out that when former governor general Mary Simon spent $100,000 on in-flight catering during a trip to the Middle East in 2022, the government promised to take “steps to offset recurrences of high costs” associated with travel, following public outrage.
And yet, Carney spent about $60,000 more on airplane food during his November trip than Simon spent on her trip to the Middle East.
“It’s possible for the prime minister to travel internationally without billing taxpayers six figures for airplane food, so we need Carney to make sure these types of bills never happen again,” Terrazzano said.
The PM’s $159,800 in-flight catering bill was revealed in response to an order paper question asked by MP Scot Davidson in April.
The CTF noted the government’s response says catering costs do not reflect any reimbursements that may have been received afterwards, but it did not provide information on what costs, if any, were reimbursed to taxpayers.
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