Politicians need personal days, too
Today Prime Minister Justin Trudeau really ticked off some of his political opponents.
He didn’t befriend a North Korean dictator. He didn’t cage any kids. He didn’t take any bribes. He took a personal day. The PM’s official itinerary for Monday June 25 — a statutory holiday in Quebec — reads “Personal,” as in “vacation,” as in, “not actively working to make Canada a better place” — a fact that has scandalized some of the PM’s critics.
Among them is the Conservative Party of Canada. The official opposition tweeted and then promptly deleted the following statement on Monday: “Justin Trudeau is taking yet another ‘personal’ day today.”
The scare quotes around the word “personal” suggest that it is inappropriate or somehow duplicitous for the Prime Minister of Canada to take a vacation day, or several vacation days a year, a practice most of us recognize as healthy and normal in the context of our own working lives.
But when it comes to the lives of leaders (or leaders we dislike) our expectations are often wildly unrealistic. Perhaps it’s because they have immense power and resources at their disposal and we are frustrated by the lack of power and resources in our own lives, but it seems we expect politicians to work until they drop dead. (Or if they do vacation, we expect them to do so quietly and cheaply. God forbid they enjoy themselves.)
Vacation shaming isn’t an exclusively Conservative tactic. If Andrew Scheer is elected prime minister one day, his critics across the aisle will most likely give him a hard time for skipping work to tend to himself. The irony about this is that Canadian political leaders of all stripes have made it a priority in recent years to highlight the importance of mental health and work-life balance, especially in hopes of getting more women involved in public policy. Yet, when their political opponents reveal themselves to be human, suddenly the act of taking a personal day is evidence of laziness and unfitness for office.
In every other facet of working life we accept that with seniority and great responsibility comes additional vacation time. Why shouldn’t this principle apply to politics? Of course we are free to criticize the nature of the vacations taken by our politicians. Is the trip in question on the public dime? Is our PM kicking it back with people whose values do not align with our own? Is he accepting bribes from his hosts? Is he trying way too hard to look like a Bollywood star? These are valid questions we should ask about anyone who spends our tax dollars, regardless of what political party they belong to. But it’s fundamentally unfair to object to the idea of vacation itself just because the person seeking free time is the most powerful in the nation.
Not only is it fundamentally unfair, it fuels dishonesty in politics because it suggests politicians must conceal the fact that they are human beings who need to recharge. “Why don’t good people run for office?” is probably the most common, cliché question ever posed in public discourse, but the answer is very simple. Good people don’t run for office because they want to remain people, period.
If our wish is genuine that honest, incorruptible Canadians run for politics, we can’t expect them to pretend to operate like selfless, superhumans.
Personally, as long as it’s legal, I don’t care what Justin Trudeau does on his personal day. If he chooses to volunteer at a soup kitchen: good for him. If he chooses to brush up on his foreign policy: that’s great. But if he’d rather stay in bed all day eating Doritos and bingewatching reruns of Degrassi Junior High, more power to him.
And the same goes for Andrew Scheer. If the Conservative leader is elected prime minister one day, I hope he takes as much vacation time as he needs and does with it whatever the heck he wants.
There will always be something more important to do. But those who don’t relax rarely get around to it.