President-elect Donald Trump’s recently appointed counselor Kellyanne Conway has cancelled her plans to visit with Canadian business executives last week. Conway was scheduled to speak at a dinner in Calgary, Alberta hosted by the Alberta Prosperity Fund.
“I can tell you that Ms. Conway’s office and our own have tried every option at our disposal to make this work and, unfortunately, a visit is just not possible at this time,” said Barry McNamar, the fund’s president, in a news release on Saturday.
McNamar did not return calls by The Daily Caller on Sunday to clarify the reason for the cancellation.
The sponsoring group is a conservative political action committee that planned to use the visit by Conway to highlight opportunities in Canada’s energy industry — specifically in the oil sands project in northern Alberta — where petroleum is squeezed from the earth. The dinner was a sold-out event.
On Friday Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s office confirmed that he will not be attending the Trump inauguration on Jan. 20 and will instead embark on a coast to coast tour of rural Canada.
“He is not going to the inauguration but there will be a Canadian delegation,” said press secretary Cameron Ahmad.
McNamar did not link Trudeau’s ducking of the inauguration with Conway’s cancellation.
Trudeau’s popularity has been rocked in recent weeks by reports of “cash for access” fundraising dinners that may have violated Canada’s Conflict of Interest Act and Lobbying Act.
The fund said Saturday that Ms. Conway’s visit had been met with a “groundswell of support from Canadian business leaders keen to show their support for what is widely viewed as a business and jobs-friendly administration.”
“Naturally we are disappointed,” said the fund’s chairwoman Heather Forsyth, a former member of the Legislative Assembly in Alberta. “Canadians were keen to hear about the Trump campaign’s path to victory and to simply show support for a new free enterprise administration.”
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