Another great column. Especially appreciate the eds' balance on the Gaza war, although my blood reached boiling point when I paused to watch the cops-handing out stuff-video, which left me pretty disgusted. Finally, as one who worked at The Canadian Press for 40+ years, I'm very sad to see the end of another traditional newsroom. The writers and editors will still turn out great copy, but a lot of the workplace fun has been sucked out. Not that newsrooms were fun places all the time but what was a constant was the feeling you get when you're part of a first class team of people.
I don't think Trudeau wants out of the job or that he doesn't care what people think. To the contrary, as he lives at the epicentre of the Liberal bubble, I expect he thinks he's doing a fine job -- everyone around him assures of that, don't they? -- and the job keeps him from thinking about his personal life. Plus, his lifelong flair for the theatrical, from throwing himself across his father's coffin (where has that ever happened outside Victorian novels?) to his various makeup and costume parades suggest someone who is very much playing for applause, which he gets from everyone but the "bad" people.
I think the third possibility is that he has no idea *why* he should care. From his point of view, what has he done wrong? Liberals are the party of all that is right and true; he is the beating heart of the party of all that is good and true; and therefore naysayers are enemies of all that is good and true, are to be disregarded.
On aliens: It is impossible for me to believe they don't exist somewhere among the two hundred billion trillion stars out there (aka 200 sextillion), but what IS impossible for me to believe is the one in 200 sextillion odds of such aliens happening upon us AND that their nanosecond of existence in infinite time would exist in the same nanosecond of existence as ours. I put much more faith in communication with the spirit world, even as I wonder why on earth the dear departed wouldn't want to hang around home when they could be off exploring the void.
The observations about Me. Trudeau are what I see, obviously from a distance. I think that he has little idea of what life is like for ordinary Canadians, and doesn't realize that he is living in a different world. The other observation I would make is that he is not a serious person: a preoccupation with his socks, a love of selfies, dressing up in various costumes (first trip to India, teaching in Vancouver). I remember, early in his first term, him prompting reporters to ask him about quantum computing. They onliged, and he reeled off a couple of sentences, obviously prepared in advance, to show how clever he was.
I agree that the probable election of Mr. Trump should dominate all other issues in Canada. The chaos that will ensue will be worse than we are imagining. In particular, it is not clear how Canada will fare economically next door to a protectionist America. Given the parlous state of our national finances, this could have a huge impact on budgets, and in turn on social infrastructure that we take as given: health care, income support, education. Unfortunately, Canada has few friends to turn to if we want to distance ourselves from the U.S. -- India? China? The European Union?
Finally, we have too many sacred cows in our economy. Barriers to interprovincial trade? Supply management? Restrictions on foreign ownership of telecoms, airlines, banks? A prohibition on private sector providers of health care?
We are going to end up an international charity case.
Your Windsor/Michigan analogy is your worst ever! We would whine about injustice and beg the US to bring the perpetrators to justice without declaring the perpetrators a terrorist group.
The Americans are decidedly suicidal, perhaps to an even greater degree than Canadians and the rest of The West. Still, they are the world's best hope, should they ever shake themselves out of it. It would honestly not surprise me to see either/both of the presidential candidates to be dead by this time next year, either by natural causes or via more traditional American expedience, as has been their history.
Is it too late for Hillary to make another comeback? OK, I just said that to piss everyone off.
But would she try again?
Now onto even darker points from your column.
Isreal will win vs Hamas, but have ultimately lost because of the world's antisemitism.
Ukraine will lose vs Russia, because of China & Iran's support and the suicidal West's fecklessness.
The West will realize (too late) the folly of not supporting Ukraine.
Aliens? Sorry, but that's a smokescreen.
Enjoy your ST/SW science fiction (as I do - both), but actual aliens are wishful BS.
RIP National Post newsroom. I sympathize, but that model is long dead.
Sincerely, welcome back to both of you - we need you. It won't be a Happy New Year. At all.
I'd argue that the vacation is a combination of DGAF, self-sabotage & 'too many years, too many limousines' (a half-remembered quote from Molly Ivins). The last one I think is the most important - JT doesn't & hasn't lived the type of life that most of the country does & is incapable of grasping how tone-deaf these vacations are.
Reading along down to the bottom and given cause to think about the many awful things that are going on in this troubled world, it’s very petty to dwell on yet another Freddie the Freeloader holiday by our beloved Prime Minister. But I will anyway.
DH Theory 1:
Canadians have seen this elite holiday getaway BS so often that our reaction instincts have been long baked into two camps: the TruAnons who are grateful for the Boss getting a break and the Election Can’t Come Soon Enough Crowd who are patiently biding our time to make an election statement of disapproval. In other words, it’s a nothing burger.
DH Theory 2:
The Liberals deliberately seed this outrageous behaviour into the news cycle. Why? I have no idea, but as the saying goes, maybe we should be paying closer attention to what the Liberals are really doing while we are distracted by holiday excursions.
And finally, for me the worst of the worst Trudeau freeloader holidays isn’t any of the sun spot excursions. It was the taxpayer funded excesses of Her Majesty’s Funeral. Lining up a $7000/night luxury room and commandeering a karaoke bar just before the funeral reeks of “it’s all about me” narcissism.
Any hope of sending a statesman to represent our country at a pivotal moment in history evaporated with the realization that we actually sent a self absorbed man who enjoys the perks more than doing his job.
I would have to along with Maurice. Trudeau just doesn't care. It is obviously bad optics to go on an expensive Jamaican holiday vacation, worse to have it gifted. But it only took two statements from his office to admit it was paid for by his friend. The rest of Canada and spend their holiday vacation at home because they cannot afford to fly to Jamaica.
And where is the NDP on this? Or would Jagmeet Singh just say, "For $7,000, I could buy one nice suit or maybe even a good watch."
Two reasonable theories but I believe in a third theory: the PM and the current version of the Liberal Party truly believe they are a force for all that is good battling the forces of darkness. And when you believe you are fighting pure unmitigated evil threatening all that is good, anything goes and the naysayers are lying members of the dark side.
We see this with both parties in the US. Every election is “Flight 93”. If “they” win, it is the end of the country as you know it. And both sides do their part making the other side believe that they are pure evil.
On Ukraine: my understanding (from Cathal Nolan's "The Allure of Battle") is that major wars almost always turn into a war of attrition. Basically, who runs out of men and materials first? So the West's continued support for Ukraine (particularly supplying munitions) is critically important. The Israel-Hamas war makes that harder.
Wow, that's a lot of content... another possibility is that Justin is still trying to enhance his "celebrity" stature as it seems a whole lot of Canadians want to pretend to be ruled by a celebrity, if not true royalty. And how is it that Hamas isn't running low on ammunition? If the IDF can keep Hamas from resupplying, I think the war will only end, and seemingly quite suddenly, when Hamas does run out. As far as the aliens go, there must be some sort of "prime directive" in place or else the aliens would have conquered Earth a long time ago. My guess is that, despite their technology that allows them to usually remain hidden and travel incredibly quickly, they don't visit Earth all that often.
I get the aliens issue, but I think it's less about what's out there than what's in here (points to the heart). We have lost our guiding visions in the West, our collective rituals and much else binding us (Canada 150 was a really humdinger eh?). The prospect of an OTHER out there that binds humans together is too good for the psyche to pass up. Folks, there are no aliens, just millions of lost souls looking for connection. It's there if you look for it. As for the drip drip alien issue, I don't doubt pilots and others see all kinds of things, and I believe in the mystery. I just think it'll stay a mystery until we show whoever is out there we can do more than sit in orbit of our own planet. On this Musk is correct:
Please don’t stoop to criticizing someone for taking a vacation.
Do people not realize the time commitment required to be the head of government? Never mind how well you think he does it, that’s irrelevant. (And for the record, I think he’s pretty incompetent.)
Given that, do you think he doesn’t really get to take a vacation? Or that his family doesn’t deserve one with their father? Or that if any one of us were invited to a friend’s cottage or Caribbean timeshare, we’d say “thanks but no thanks? (This assumes the “friend” really is one - that there are no “undue influence” ethics issues.)
Yes, there are security costs involved that he doesn’t pay for. So what? That’s absolutely unavoidable, it comes with the job. Arguing that point is equivalent to arguing he doesn’t get to go anywhere.
Yes, there are political hacks who will criticize his vacations. Emulating them is not a good look.
Please, enough with the vacation criticisms. Find some real issues on which to criticize him. There are lots.
This is, very clearly, not a criticism of him taking time off. Most people can manage to take a vacation without leaning on a friend for an $80,000 free holiday. JG
Who wouldn’t? Not our PM obviously. Who shouldn’t? The same person. He’s the leader of an entire country and shouldn’t be taking gifts while in office IMO. Take a vacation - fine, but at his own expense. I believe he knows better, but just doesn’t care.
I suspect that Mr. Trudeau takes a lot more vacation than reported by his office. For example, we know that, on the first day of reconciliation with indigenous peoples, his public aganda showed that ne was busy with meetings in Ottawa. In fact, he was surfing in Tofino. As a second example, just before Christmas 2018, Michael Wernick met with Jody Raybould-Wilson. Asked why he ad not relayed the content of the conversation to the Prime Minister, Mr. Wernick said that there was nobody left in Ottawa for him to talk to. Yet the Prime Minister's public agenda showed that he was holding meetings in Ottawa for a further two days.
I also recall Ethics Commissioner Marcel Dionne's report on the WE Charity affair. He cleared the Prime Minister of conflict of interest because the Prime Minister had told him that neither his wife nor his mother had ever discussed their work for WE Charity with him, and so he didn't know that they were being paid. I found that strange. But different families operate in different ways.
Good points. Yes we all need a vacation. And a member of the silk stockinged trust funded Quebec elite should not be expected to cavort with mere working stiffs. And why worry about undue influence? He was bought and paid for by the Canadian/Quebec government oligarchy/plutocracy from the day of his birth. And he had no choice in the matter.
If there is any blame to be assigned for the State treasure expended for his protection, look in the mirror .
I've been reading Mary Beard's latest history book, "The Roman Emperor". Trudeau's political challenges with respect to his lifestyle was a problem 2000 years ago for Roman emperors. They were incredibly wealth, incredibly powerful, but the more successful ones continued to perceive the sensitivity of flaunting it to the Roman population.
Nobody should be arguing that Trudeau isn't entitled to vacations. However, I also can't recall this ever being an issue for previous prime ministers. There were plenty of news articles criticizing previous PMs for their travel costs, so I don't think this is simply a case of Justin Trudeau being singled out. I think he's a guy who's used to an upper class lifestyle, and somehow doesn't quite get why it's politically troublesome.
Well, I get why it’s troublesome, I just don’t agree with it being so. It’s like some form of weird reverse discrimination against the wealthy being free to enjoy themselves in the style with which they are accustomed while in office.
As for flaunting, it’s not like he can avoid people finding out. Maybe the press of yesteryear just weren’t as nosy. If I recall correctly, Beaverbrook only took a dollar a year, but I don’t imagine he changed his lifestyle. Oh, maybe he did a little, but then there was a war going on.
Maybe it’s because Trudeau’s an heir rather than self-made? Did Michael Bloomberg have this problem? (Serious question.)
As I said, I don't recall this having been an issue for previous PMs. Trudeau Sr. was also wealthy (wealthier, in fact), having also inherited a fortune from his family. Mulroney was a high-powered lawyer and corporate executive before becoming PM. Paul Martin was a wealthy businessman. All of them seem to have avoided the issue. It also doesn't seem to have been a problem for Chretien and Harper, both of comparatively modest backgrounds.
Justin Trudeau seems to stand out in this regard, and I think it's because he's seen to be accustomed to and enjoying the lifestyle. There seems to be some awareness that it's a problem, or else he wouldn't try to keep his itinerary confidential. The point of an expensive private resort in Jamaica is that it's really private - this isn't a security issue. As noted in this dispatch, the vacation in and of itself probably wouldn't be an issue except as part of a longer history of controversial vacations and questionable decisions like the perceived self-dealing of the WE scandal.
But what do you think Harrington Cottage is for? I believe it now houses Maggie, which is weird. Anyway, very few people are begrudging him a vacation, but they can, should, and do comment on how ostentatious his choices are. That's our right. (And it's your right to criticize our comments too!)
So people who have a cottage ever do anything but go to the cottage? Seriously?
I have never heard anything about Maggie at Harrington, but if true I expect the costs of her being there are covered personally, other than that, it’s not much different than having an in-law in the basement. Surely lots of Canadians can identify with that.
I don’t think people need multiple international vacations each year. If they do, that’s fine, as long as they shut up about other people’s carbon footprints. My biggest issue with JT’s vacations is his hypocrisy and sanctimony. But, as the Line eds pointed out, we taxpayers foot the bill for an extensive renovation at Harrington. Maybe they could use that once in a while. You make it sound like Trudeau has been deprived of vacations 😂
Did he have another international one in 2023? Is one every year too much too?
But yes, the carbon footprint argument is a good one.
I confess to not knowing the ins and outs of the Harrington renovation, but if it’s going to be kept, I expect that it should be kept up. The state of 24 Sussex is a black mark on the entire political establishment.
I don’t get the impression he’s been deprived of vacations, I just get annoyed at those who raise cain whenever he takes one, which doesn’t seem to be inordinately frequent to me.
People comment every time he takes a vacation. If that's too much for you, that's a sign that he takes a lot. In any case, taxpayers have every right to comment about it. If/when Poilievre is PM and takes excessive extravagant vacations while preaching to us about lowering our carbon footprints, I imagine there will be outcry as well. Actually, I imagine there will be outcry if he orders an orange juice, to be honest, because that's how Canada rolls.
Aside from the redundancy, I find this an interesting topic.
Should we criticize extravagance, or merely note that any spending is really just distributing the wealth amongst those providing the goods/services, who in turn will spend it elsewhere proving work for others? Isn’t that what the market is for?
On the other hand, if it wasn’t spent, it would be invested, and that also would provide work for others.
As far as I can tell, the only spending crime is hiding your money under the mattress. Criticizing extravagant spending without first criticizing the status quo (principally the tax regime, in my opinion) which facilitates extreme inequality seems a little blinkered to me.
“If that's too much for you, that's a sign that he takes a lot.”
Non sequitur. It might be a sign, but better proof required.
“… that's how Canada rolls”.
That’s certainly how the journalism and political hack establishment roll, and my take is that that mindset has bled into the general populace. “They drink the sand because they don’t know the difference.” And they’re not being shown it either. Once upon a time (or was it just in my juvenile memory?) leaders (not just political ones) led.
Frankly, I do what I can to resist that, and I expect better in this forum too. The Globe’s forum is a mess in that regard.
What do people expect a PM to do for a vacation? The past ones that blew up had specific concerns in terms of timing or conflict of interest. It's not unreasonable for a chief executive to take some time off, and it's not reasonable to expect them to do it at a Sunwing all-inclusive. The guy's been in the job for 8+ years. Is he only allowed to leave the country on official business or something?
I get that the jackass has done himself no favors with his past screwups, but I really don't see what the big deal is with this latest one unless there's some concern about a conflict again. But all I see is accusations of "elitism", which are frankly fucking ridiculous given the fact that he CAN'T just take a "normal" vacation due to security concerns. I look forward to the same people expressing the same concerns every time PP sets foot outside the country on his own time.
Oh and the UAP stuff is stupid. Harris had one or two guests on his show, indicated that someone really credible had reached out to him (possibly third hand), and then nothing ever came of it. Given the level of hard evidence that's come forward recently (still absolutely zero! Mick West has debunked just about all of the more recent ones), I'm not holding my breath.
Considerable options exist between "Sunwing all-inclusive" and $9K billionaire owned exclusive. He should have gone somewhere that was both cheaper and not owned by an alleged family friend who contributed to the Trudeau Foundation. The Laurentian Elite is so inbreed that it no longer discerns the incest.
Another great column. Especially appreciate the eds' balance on the Gaza war, although my blood reached boiling point when I paused to watch the cops-handing out stuff-video, which left me pretty disgusted. Finally, as one who worked at The Canadian Press for 40+ years, I'm very sad to see the end of another traditional newsroom. The writers and editors will still turn out great copy, but a lot of the workplace fun has been sucked out. Not that newsrooms were fun places all the time but what was a constant was the feeling you get when you're part of a first class team of people.
Great roundup to start the year.
I don't think Trudeau wants out of the job or that he doesn't care what people think. To the contrary, as he lives at the epicentre of the Liberal bubble, I expect he thinks he's doing a fine job -- everyone around him assures of that, don't they? -- and the job keeps him from thinking about his personal life. Plus, his lifelong flair for the theatrical, from throwing himself across his father's coffin (where has that ever happened outside Victorian novels?) to his various makeup and costume parades suggest someone who is very much playing for applause, which he gets from everyone but the "bad" people.
I think the third possibility is that he has no idea *why* he should care. From his point of view, what has he done wrong? Liberals are the party of all that is right and true; he is the beating heart of the party of all that is good and true; and therefore naysayers are enemies of all that is good and true, are to be disregarded.
On aliens: It is impossible for me to believe they don't exist somewhere among the two hundred billion trillion stars out there (aka 200 sextillion), but what IS impossible for me to believe is the one in 200 sextillion odds of such aliens happening upon us AND that their nanosecond of existence in infinite time would exist in the same nanosecond of existence as ours. I put much more faith in communication with the spirit world, even as I wonder why on earth the dear departed wouldn't want to hang around home when they could be off exploring the void.
Welcome back. I missed you.
The observations about Me. Trudeau are what I see, obviously from a distance. I think that he has little idea of what life is like for ordinary Canadians, and doesn't realize that he is living in a different world. The other observation I would make is that he is not a serious person: a preoccupation with his socks, a love of selfies, dressing up in various costumes (first trip to India, teaching in Vancouver). I remember, early in his first term, him prompting reporters to ask him about quantum computing. They onliged, and he reeled off a couple of sentences, obviously prepared in advance, to show how clever he was.
I agree that the probable election of Mr. Trump should dominate all other issues in Canada. The chaos that will ensue will be worse than we are imagining. In particular, it is not clear how Canada will fare economically next door to a protectionist America. Given the parlous state of our national finances, this could have a huge impact on budgets, and in turn on social infrastructure that we take as given: health care, income support, education. Unfortunately, Canada has few friends to turn to if we want to distance ourselves from the U.S. -- India? China? The European Union?
Finally, we have too many sacred cows in our economy. Barriers to interprovincial trade? Supply management? Restrictions on foreign ownership of telecoms, airlines, banks? A prohibition on private sector providers of health care?
We are going to end up an international charity case.
Your Windsor/Michigan analogy is your worst ever! We would whine about injustice and beg the US to bring the perpetrators to justice without declaring the perpetrators a terrorist group.
MSM and the elitists would also blame guns and the MAGA style PC's for the incursion.
Welcome back.
Theory two - DGAF - is the obvious correct one.
The Americans are decidedly suicidal, perhaps to an even greater degree than Canadians and the rest of The West. Still, they are the world's best hope, should they ever shake themselves out of it. It would honestly not surprise me to see either/both of the presidential candidates to be dead by this time next year, either by natural causes or via more traditional American expedience, as has been their history.
Is it too late for Hillary to make another comeback? OK, I just said that to piss everyone off.
But would she try again?
Now onto even darker points from your column.
Isreal will win vs Hamas, but have ultimately lost because of the world's antisemitism.
Ukraine will lose vs Russia, because of China & Iran's support and the suicidal West's fecklessness.
The West will realize (too late) the folly of not supporting Ukraine.
Aliens? Sorry, but that's a smokescreen.
Enjoy your ST/SW science fiction (as I do - both), but actual aliens are wishful BS.
RIP National Post newsroom. I sympathize, but that model is long dead.
Sincerely, welcome back to both of you - we need you. It won't be a Happy New Year. At all.
I'd argue that the vacation is a combination of DGAF, self-sabotage & 'too many years, too many limousines' (a half-remembered quote from Molly Ivins). The last one I think is the most important - JT doesn't & hasn't lived the type of life that most of the country does & is incapable of grasping how tone-deaf these vacations are.
We're also forgetting that this lifestyle is probably why he became PM in the first place. He wanted the glamorous parts, not the policy parts.
Love this column..easy P easy and enough to get me goin’ and git er done. Thanks and I mean get out of bed and make breakfast for hubby and me.
Welcome back! My life is now complete!
Reading along down to the bottom and given cause to think about the many awful things that are going on in this troubled world, it’s very petty to dwell on yet another Freddie the Freeloader holiday by our beloved Prime Minister. But I will anyway.
DH Theory 1:
Canadians have seen this elite holiday getaway BS so often that our reaction instincts have been long baked into two camps: the TruAnons who are grateful for the Boss getting a break and the Election Can’t Come Soon Enough Crowd who are patiently biding our time to make an election statement of disapproval. In other words, it’s a nothing burger.
DH Theory 2:
The Liberals deliberately seed this outrageous behaviour into the news cycle. Why? I have no idea, but as the saying goes, maybe we should be paying closer attention to what the Liberals are really doing while we are distracted by holiday excursions.
And finally, for me the worst of the worst Trudeau freeloader holidays isn’t any of the sun spot excursions. It was the taxpayer funded excesses of Her Majesty’s Funeral. Lining up a $7000/night luxury room and commandeering a karaoke bar just before the funeral reeks of “it’s all about me” narcissism.
Any hope of sending a statesman to represent our country at a pivotal moment in history evaporated with the realization that we actually sent a self absorbed man who enjoys the perks more than doing his job.
I place my bet on DGAF. Theory One is pretty good too.
I would have to along with Maurice. Trudeau just doesn't care. It is obviously bad optics to go on an expensive Jamaican holiday vacation, worse to have it gifted. But it only took two statements from his office to admit it was paid for by his friend. The rest of Canada and spend their holiday vacation at home because they cannot afford to fly to Jamaica.
And where is the NDP on this? Or would Jagmeet Singh just say, "For $7,000, I could buy one nice suit or maybe even a good watch."
Two reasonable theories but I believe in a third theory: the PM and the current version of the Liberal Party truly believe they are a force for all that is good battling the forces of darkness. And when you believe you are fighting pure unmitigated evil threatening all that is good, anything goes and the naysayers are lying members of the dark side.
We see this with both parties in the US. Every election is “Flight 93”. If “they” win, it is the end of the country as you know it. And both sides do their part making the other side believe that they are pure evil.
On Ukraine: my understanding (from Cathal Nolan's "The Allure of Battle") is that major wars almost always turn into a war of attrition. Basically, who runs out of men and materials first? So the West's continued support for Ukraine (particularly supplying munitions) is critically important. The Israel-Hamas war makes that harder.
Wow, that's a lot of content... another possibility is that Justin is still trying to enhance his "celebrity" stature as it seems a whole lot of Canadians want to pretend to be ruled by a celebrity, if not true royalty. And how is it that Hamas isn't running low on ammunition? If the IDF can keep Hamas from resupplying, I think the war will only end, and seemingly quite suddenly, when Hamas does run out. As far as the aliens go, there must be some sort of "prime directive" in place or else the aliens would have conquered Earth a long time ago. My guess is that, despite their technology that allows them to usually remain hidden and travel incredibly quickly, they don't visit Earth all that often.
I get the aliens issue, but I think it's less about what's out there than what's in here (points to the heart). We have lost our guiding visions in the West, our collective rituals and much else binding us (Canada 150 was a really humdinger eh?). The prospect of an OTHER out there that binds humans together is too good for the psyche to pass up. Folks, there are no aliens, just millions of lost souls looking for connection. It's there if you look for it. As for the drip drip alien issue, I don't doubt pilots and others see all kinds of things, and I believe in the mystery. I just think it'll stay a mystery until we show whoever is out there we can do more than sit in orbit of our own planet. On this Musk is correct:
interplanetary species or bust.
Please don’t stoop to criticizing someone for taking a vacation.
Do people not realize the time commitment required to be the head of government? Never mind how well you think he does it, that’s irrelevant. (And for the record, I think he’s pretty incompetent.)
Given that, do you think he doesn’t really get to take a vacation? Or that his family doesn’t deserve one with their father? Or that if any one of us were invited to a friend’s cottage or Caribbean timeshare, we’d say “thanks but no thanks? (This assumes the “friend” really is one - that there are no “undue influence” ethics issues.)
Yes, there are security costs involved that he doesn’t pay for. So what? That’s absolutely unavoidable, it comes with the job. Arguing that point is equivalent to arguing he doesn’t get to go anywhere.
Yes, there are political hacks who will criticize his vacations. Emulating them is not a good look.
Please, enough with the vacation criticisms. Find some real issues on which to criticize him. There are lots.
This is, very clearly, not a criticism of him taking time off. Most people can manage to take a vacation without leaning on a friend for an $80,000 free holiday. JG
The cost strata is nothing more than different strokes.
Most people can manage without spending $25K either, but for a lot of people that’s not unheard of.
And I already addressed “leaning on a friend”. Who wouldn’t take up a friend who had made it big but hadn’t forgotten their friends on such an offer?
Who wouldn’t? Not our PM obviously. Who shouldn’t? The same person. He’s the leader of an entire country and shouldn’t be taking gifts while in office IMO. Take a vacation - fine, but at his own expense. I believe he knows better, but just doesn’t care.
I'm curious what you think a prime ministerial vacation out to look like?
And if a PM decides to go to Club Med, what are the necessary security arrangements, what would they cost, and who is expected to pay for them?
I suspect that Mr. Trudeau takes a lot more vacation than reported by his office. For example, we know that, on the first day of reconciliation with indigenous peoples, his public aganda showed that ne was busy with meetings in Ottawa. In fact, he was surfing in Tofino. As a second example, just before Christmas 2018, Michael Wernick met with Jody Raybould-Wilson. Asked why he ad not relayed the content of the conversation to the Prime Minister, Mr. Wernick said that there was nobody left in Ottawa for him to talk to. Yet the Prime Minister's public agenda showed that he was holding meetings in Ottawa for a further two days.
I also recall Ethics Commissioner Marcel Dionne's report on the WE Charity affair. He cleared the Prime Minister of conflict of interest because the Prime Minister had told him that neither his wife nor his mother had ever discussed their work for WE Charity with him, and so he didn't know that they were being paid. I found that strange. But different families operate in different ways.
Good points. Yes we all need a vacation. And a member of the silk stockinged trust funded Quebec elite should not be expected to cavort with mere working stiffs. And why worry about undue influence? He was bought and paid for by the Canadian/Quebec government oligarchy/plutocracy from the day of his birth. And he had no choice in the matter.
If there is any blame to be assigned for the State treasure expended for his protection, look in the mirror .
I've been reading Mary Beard's latest history book, "The Roman Emperor". Trudeau's political challenges with respect to his lifestyle was a problem 2000 years ago for Roman emperors. They were incredibly wealth, incredibly powerful, but the more successful ones continued to perceive the sensitivity of flaunting it to the Roman population.
Nobody should be arguing that Trudeau isn't entitled to vacations. However, I also can't recall this ever being an issue for previous prime ministers. There were plenty of news articles criticizing previous PMs for their travel costs, so I don't think this is simply a case of Justin Trudeau being singled out. I think he's a guy who's used to an upper class lifestyle, and somehow doesn't quite get why it's politically troublesome.
Well, I get why it’s troublesome, I just don’t agree with it being so. It’s like some form of weird reverse discrimination against the wealthy being free to enjoy themselves in the style with which they are accustomed while in office.
As for flaunting, it’s not like he can avoid people finding out. Maybe the press of yesteryear just weren’t as nosy. If I recall correctly, Beaverbrook only took a dollar a year, but I don’t imagine he changed his lifestyle. Oh, maybe he did a little, but then there was a war going on.
Maybe it’s because Trudeau’s an heir rather than self-made? Did Michael Bloomberg have this problem? (Serious question.)
As I said, I don't recall this having been an issue for previous PMs. Trudeau Sr. was also wealthy (wealthier, in fact), having also inherited a fortune from his family. Mulroney was a high-powered lawyer and corporate executive before becoming PM. Paul Martin was a wealthy businessman. All of them seem to have avoided the issue. It also doesn't seem to have been a problem for Chretien and Harper, both of comparatively modest backgrounds.
Justin Trudeau seems to stand out in this regard, and I think it's because he's seen to be accustomed to and enjoying the lifestyle. There seems to be some awareness that it's a problem, or else he wouldn't try to keep his itinerary confidential. The point of an expensive private resort in Jamaica is that it's really private - this isn't a security issue. As noted in this dispatch, the vacation in and of itself probably wouldn't be an issue except as part of a longer history of controversial vacations and questionable decisions like the perceived self-dealing of the WE scandal.
But what do you think Harrington Cottage is for? I believe it now houses Maggie, which is weird. Anyway, very few people are begrudging him a vacation, but they can, should, and do comment on how ostentatious his choices are. That's our right. (And it's your right to criticize our comments too!)
So people who have a cottage ever do anything but go to the cottage? Seriously?
I have never heard anything about Maggie at Harrington, but if true I expect the costs of her being there are covered personally, other than that, it’s not much different than having an in-law in the basement. Surely lots of Canadians can identify with that.
I don’t think people need multiple international vacations each year. If they do, that’s fine, as long as they shut up about other people’s carbon footprints. My biggest issue with JT’s vacations is his hypocrisy and sanctimony. But, as the Line eds pointed out, we taxpayers foot the bill for an extensive renovation at Harrington. Maybe they could use that once in a while. You make it sound like Trudeau has been deprived of vacations 😂
Did he have another international one in 2023? Is one every year too much too?
But yes, the carbon footprint argument is a good one.
I confess to not knowing the ins and outs of the Harrington renovation, but if it’s going to be kept, I expect that it should be kept up. The state of 24 Sussex is a black mark on the entire political establishment.
I don’t get the impression he’s been deprived of vacations, I just get annoyed at those who raise cain whenever he takes one, which doesn’t seem to be inordinately frequent to me.
People comment every time he takes a vacation. If that's too much for you, that's a sign that he takes a lot. In any case, taxpayers have every right to comment about it. If/when Poilievre is PM and takes excessive extravagant vacations while preaching to us about lowering our carbon footprints, I imagine there will be outcry as well. Actually, I imagine there will be outcry if he orders an orange juice, to be honest, because that's how Canada rolls.
“excessive extravagant”
Aside from the redundancy, I find this an interesting topic.
Should we criticize extravagance, or merely note that any spending is really just distributing the wealth amongst those providing the goods/services, who in turn will spend it elsewhere proving work for others? Isn’t that what the market is for?
On the other hand, if it wasn’t spent, it would be invested, and that also would provide work for others.
As far as I can tell, the only spending crime is hiding your money under the mattress. Criticizing extravagant spending without first criticizing the status quo (principally the tax regime, in my opinion) which facilitates extreme inequality seems a little blinkered to me.
“If that's too much for you, that's a sign that he takes a lot.”
Non sequitur. It might be a sign, but better proof required.
“… that's how Canada rolls”.
That’s certainly how the journalism and political hack establishment roll, and my take is that that mindset has bled into the general populace. “They drink the sand because they don’t know the difference.” And they’re not being shown it either. Once upon a time (or was it just in my juvenile memory?) leaders (not just political ones) led.
Frankly, I do what I can to resist that, and I expect better in this forum too. The Globe’s forum is a mess in that regard.
What do people expect a PM to do for a vacation? The past ones that blew up had specific concerns in terms of timing or conflict of interest. It's not unreasonable for a chief executive to take some time off, and it's not reasonable to expect them to do it at a Sunwing all-inclusive. The guy's been in the job for 8+ years. Is he only allowed to leave the country on official business or something?
I get that the jackass has done himself no favors with his past screwups, but I really don't see what the big deal is with this latest one unless there's some concern about a conflict again. But all I see is accusations of "elitism", which are frankly fucking ridiculous given the fact that he CAN'T just take a "normal" vacation due to security concerns. I look forward to the same people expressing the same concerns every time PP sets foot outside the country on his own time.
Oh and the UAP stuff is stupid. Harris had one or two guests on his show, indicated that someone really credible had reached out to him (possibly third hand), and then nothing ever came of it. Given the level of hard evidence that's come forward recently (still absolutely zero! Mick West has debunked just about all of the more recent ones), I'm not holding my breath.
Considerable options exist between "Sunwing all-inclusive" and $9K billionaire owned exclusive. He should have gone somewhere that was both cheaper and not owned by an alleged family friend who contributed to the Trudeau Foundation. The Laurentian Elite is so inbreed that it no longer discerns the incest.
Marcel, with very great respect, Sir: bollocks!