Racking up air miles
Prime minister spent all but 11 days last month on flights
OTTAWA — As the prime minister and his family kick off August with a two-week Costa Rica vacation, he leaves behind a July with more time spent in the air than he did during the entirety of last summer — including a 5,500 km flight to spend six hours at the Calgary Stampede.
Data collected from online flight tracker websites show Justin Trudeau spent all but 11 days of July aboard CANFORCE ONE, flying a total of 26,238 km across 20 flights, all within Canada.
That’s compared to 26,059 km flown between June 1 and Aug. 31, 2021 — including last summer’s G7 summit in the U.K., as well as the June 13-15 NATO summit in Belgium.
The PM’S public itinerary shows most stops last month were photo opportunities, site tours or chats with local residents.
It doesn’t list attendance at non-governmental or party events, but Elections Canada data show four Liberal party fundraising events last month.
Three of those fundraisers — July 5 in Unionville, Ont., July 10 in Calgary and July 20 in Halifax — coincided with prime ministerial visits in those cities.
Two of the events were tree plantings — one on July 7 in Sudbury, Ont., with Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault, and another July 9 in Milton, Ont., just hours after the PM arrived on a 1,289 km flight from Truro, N.S., where he delivered an apology to descendants of 2 Construction Battalion.
Hours after planting trees in Milton, the PM embarked on a 2,700 km flight to Calgary, where he flipped pancakes at a Liberal party Stampede breakfast.
Six hours later the PM was back in the air flying 3,000 km. to Montreal for a roundtable meeting and photo op, before a 132 km. hop east to Sherbrooke to visit an electric aircraft tug manufacturer, where according to local media he refused to take questions.
After a one-day trip to Toronto July 16 to attend a parade and speak at a convention, the PM began a four-day, cross-country tour with a surprise trip to the Okanagan on July 18.
From Penticton, he flew to Vancouver for a July 19 policy announcement, followed by a photo opportunity at a children’s camp.
The PM was back in the air July 20 for a 4,400 km flight to Halifax, his second trip to the city that month, for what his official itinerary lists as “private meetings” — the same day federal Liberals held a fundraiser in that city.
The PM wrapped his tour of the Maritimes with handshaking in Charlottetown, P.E.I., before returning to Ottawa that evening.
That P.E.I. stopover resulted in a “torrent” of abuse directed at a brewpub that hosted one of the PM’S events in Charlottetown, with management of the Lone Oak Brewing Company posting on Facebook that one of their delivery vans had been vandalized after staff posted photos of the July 22 visit.
The balance of July was spent participating in Pope Francis’ six-day visit, including meeting the pontiff’s plane in Edmonton on July 24, and attending mass in Quebec City July 27.
Canadian PMS can’t fly commercially, and rely on a fleet of RCAF Challenger 650 business jets, or larger CC-150 Polaris transport aircraft for overseas trips.
Online calculators suggest the PM’S flights released nearly 120 metric tonnes of carbon dioxide into the environment last month.
The shortest flight was a 14-minute, 57 km hop between Charlottetown and Summerside, P.E.I.
RCAF crews also performed an empty 62 km deadhead flight on July 18 from Kelowna, B.C., to pick up the PM in Penticton before continuing on to Vancouver.
Senior government officials have garnered criticism over their VIP travel use.
During a March 2019 Florida vacation, the prime minister took a Challenger
jet on a 4,200 km round trip to attend meetings in Ottawa.