Politicians face ire after taking trips at holidays

She was the first member of Parliament to announce that she had tested positive for the coronavirus in Canada. About a month after she recovered, she volunteered in a nursing home badly hit by the pandemic as a trained nurse, bathing, changing and administering medication to residents on an infected floor.

Her father died in September of a brain hemorrhage, followed weeks later by her uncle.

Some might cut Kamal Khera some slack, for her suffering and service during a year that darkly summoned both.

But, when Khera revealed she had flown to Seattle over the holidays to attend a small family memorial, the public reaction was swift and bruising.

Denounced on social media as “selfish,” “arrogant” and a “cheater,” she was forced to step down from her parliamentary role as secretary to the minister of international development.

More than a dozen Canadian politicians have been pilloried and punished since New Year’s Eve for taking tropical vacations and family trips outside of the country while most of the nation has hunkered under lockdowns.

Two of them wer e among the ruling Liberal Party, including K hera, who represents Brampton West, a suburb of Toronto that has seen high rates of the virus.

“One of the things that has been really, really important throughout this pandemic for Canadians is the sense we’re all in this together, that we’re looking out for each other,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Tuesday.