THE TRUDEAUS’ EASTER WEEKEND BREAK TO GO SURFING IN TOFINO SEEMS ILL-TIMED. IF THE PRIME MINISTER HASN’T DECARBONIZED HIS FAMILY VACATIONS BY NOW, IT SEEMS UNLIKELY HE EVER WILL.
Shouldn’t he consider a greener option?
Robert Kokonis, president of the aviation consultancy AirTrav, told the Financial Post this week that by 2030, a family of four could “easily” be paying $600 in carbon tax for a flight from Toronto to Vancouver. That’s based on predictions and best guesses as to where the tax rate goes and how it applies after 2022, when the federal government’s current plans top out at $50 per tonne; but even at $50, Kokonis claimed that family will likely be paying $120 extra just to fly from Ottawa to Toronto and back. Conservative leader Andrew Scheer retweeted the interview on Friday afternoon, weaponizing it for partisan effect. “Imagine you’ve saved enough to finally go on that family vacation, or that you have to fly home from Vancouver to Fredericton to take care of your mom,” he suggested. Now imagine that costing $600 more. Justin Trudeau is making your life more expensive.” “That’s the point,” several intelligent people replied on social media, and of course they’re right. The promise that most families will get all their carbon expenses back at tax time is supposed to help the pill go down, but the whole idea of carbon pricing is that people will react to immediate price signals by purchasing fewer and less carbon-intensive things. If Canadians aren’t taking fewer trips to Disney World and the Caribbean and Whistler and Paris and Rome, then the tax isn’t doing its job. That’s a delicate political proposition even without the premiers of Ontario, Alberta and Saskatchewan leading a no-holds-barred guerrilla war against Justin Trudeau’s job-annihilating carbon tax from hell. As such, one might expect the prime minister to make at least minimal efforts not to be seen conspicuously consuming carbon in ways he is asking Canadians not to. Like, say, if someone suggested spending Easter long weekend surfing in Tofino, maybe Trudeau — or someone in his office — would suggest an alternative that didn’t involve gassing up the private jet and flying across the entire continent. Spring snowboarding at Mont Tremblant,
maybe? Less than two hours by motorcade. In theory they could have watched the Leafs win their first playoff series in 15 years in Toronto on Easter Sunday — four hours and a bit by carbon-friendly Via Rail. (In practice they would have watched the Leafs soil themselves, but you never know.)
It’s also possible not to go away for Easter weekend at all — or at least not far. You could do a lot worse than Netflix and chilling by the fireplace at Harrington Lake. Some cross-country skiing, a schvitz in the new sauna. Let the kids run around outside until they’re dead on their feet, have chef prepare his finest ham, invite a few friends around.
But, no, Tofino it was. At this point some significant chunk of readers will be rolling their eyes and asking questions such as “is Trudeau not entitled to time with his family?” and “I suppose you’d have them fly Westjet?” I do persist in my lonely belief that it’s not unthinkable for the prime minister of Canada to fly on a commercial airliner from time to time, and that it might send a useful if symbolic message. If David Cameron could do it, I don’t see why Trudeau can’t. But that’s not what this is about. No one is denying Trudeau time with his family, and no one except me is saying business class is acceptable for our PM. I’m not offended by the west coast weekend. But I’m not the guy trying to finagle a carbon tax past skeptical Canadians while insisting the fate of the world hangs in the balance of the upcoming October election. It sure doesn’t help for him to appear unserious about that message, or to appear to believe it doesn’t apply to him and his family.
It also doesn’t help that these carbon-intensive trips tend to call attention to the Trudeaus’ wealth and connections — Florida’s North Captiva Island is no Bell’s Cay, where the Trudeaus were famously guests of the Aga Khan, but it’s very fancy indeed — and that three of them have resulted in very bad press: Trudeau’s mid-vacation 21-hour round trip from Florida to Ottawa for no good reason earlier this year; the Aga Khan debacle, which Ottawa’s lobbyist watchdog is about to reinvestigate; and his bewildering India junket-cum-Bollywood revue. Trudeau’s woke feminist persona has taken a savage, largely self-inflicted beating since the SNC-Lavalin scandal broke. It seems like an awfully bad time for him to be nourishing his entitled surfer dude persona. But it may at least have the virtue of authenticity. If he hasn’t decarbonized his family vacations by now, it seems unlikely he ever will.