These Liberals think we should eat cake, too

With all the redacted names on Justin Trudeau’s flight manifest regarding his Christmas holiday to the Caribbean hideaway of Nevis, one would think he had smuggled Omar Khadr aboard for a little fun in the sun that didn’t involve the less-luxurious venue of Guantanamo Bay.

But, no, it was just the in-laws and a nanny, although there are families who would put their in-laws in the terrorist category without a moment’s hesitation.

This, however, is unlikely to apply when it comes to Jean Gregoire and Estelle Blais, parents of Trudeau’s spouse, Sophie Gregoire-Trudeau, and grand-papa and grand-maman to the couple’s three young children. So it was much ado about nothing. Nothing more to see here, said the Department of National Defence, who manages the mission reports for the government-owned Challenger jet that Trudeau must use due to the prohibition of prime ministers flying commercial.

Our mistake, said the military types. We redacted the names, not the prime minister and then, on cue, everyone fell on their swords like good soldiers do.

This is not to say, however, that it has been a particularly good week for the Liberals. Far from it. In fact, the dew on the honeymoon rose may be starting dry.

As the Sun Ottawa bureau chief David Akin reports, a pair of bureaucrats who scarfed down enough food while Paris climate summit to qualify for that gross skit in Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life will now pay back a portion of that tab.

Judging by such recent scenarios, it would appear the Liberals’ addiction to entitlements has not skipped a generation.

Health Minister Jane Philpott nicked taxpayers for $1,700 for just one day of being chauffeured around Toronto in a luxury sedan -- all while playing semantics that it wasn’t a true “limousine”-- and then spent thousands more in similar rides from the owner of a livery service who volunteered on her election campaign and professed “love” for the Liberals.

And, not being one to sit with the hoi polloi in the waiting area at Pearson International while connecting to Ottawa, Philpott also nicked taxpayers for the $500-plus tab for membership to the exclusive Air Canada lounge.

Imagine questioning that? Obviously we do not understand the importance of her selfimportance.

And then there is the photogenic Catherine McKenna, our federal minister of environment, who spent $6,600 for a private photographer to snap pictures at the same climate change summit that the aforementioned bureaucrat with the prodigious appetite for French food was knee deep in fine pate. But silly us who care. In an editorial the other day, the Globe & Mail, who this year hired CTV’s Bob Fife to head up its Ottawa bureau, castigated its readers for worrying about the “wrong stuff” -- as in Philpott’s non-limos or McKenna’s photo albums.

This is the same Bob Fife, ironically, who made his mark chasing down cabinet ministers and their $16 orange juices.

“The peasants are revolting,” they cried in the Wizard of Id.

“You can say that again,” said the king.