What’s the matter with these people? Have they no sense of irony?In a well-reported House of Commons slanging match last week, Liberal Health Minister Mark Holland mocked a Conservative proposal to cut gasoline taxes for the summer so that plain folk can at least enjoy the time-honoured tradition of a road trip. These days, that’s all a lot of us can afford, they said.I agree. My wife Judy and I are just back from an off-season road trip as far as Fairmont Hot Springs. Nice. Above all, affordable. Just.However, as Mr. Holland would have it, we — and all the other good folk trying to get out of town for a few days — are burning up the planet.Let’s imagine that I agree with him..What then is his boss doing if he takes a government Challenger west, when surf’s up in Tofino?According to widely reported access-to-information results, these ‘multiple’ flights each log a little over 11 hours, return. Rate of fuel consumption varies according to a number of factors normally of interest only to pilots, but as you pull your old minivan up to the pumps and squirt in the 10 gallons it’s going to take to get you to the campsite 200 miles away, you can be assured that the prime minister’s jet burns no less than 300 gallons per hour. (That would be gallons imperial, lest you think the RCAF measures in the puny gallons US.)So, let’s do the maths. Eleven hours at 300 gallons per hour is 3,300 gallons, for a prime ministerial surfing session and a decent meal perhaps, at the toney Wickaninnish Inn. Or catered more likely, at the ‘multi-million dollar oceanfront … owned by a Calgary-based e-commerce entrepreneur.’Those with an appetite for outrage are welcome to figure out how much fuel is burned hauling the prime minister and his entourage to the other exotic destinations he visits. (First stop, the Ethics Commissioner’s office for an up-to-date list.)Now, let's be fair. The prime minister is as much entitled to take a vacation as anybody else. And whatever we think of the incumbent, the office he holds poses unique security challenges when travelling. For the sake of the safety of other passengers on the plane, it makes complete sense to keep a prime minister off commercial flights.However… we can just do without the hypocrisy. The prime minister can bore a hole in the sky on some frivolous relaxation that’s out of the reach of most Canadians, but if ordinary Canadians take their kids to the beach, their health minister will scold them for ‘giving up the future of the planet?’C'mon. Naturally, when the Conservative proposal for a gasoline tax-holiday came up for the vote on Monday, the Trudeau-Singh coalition voted it down. We expected nothing else.But, here’s the thing. This kind of lordly contempt for the struggling masses seems built into the Liberal DNA and doesn’t change over time. We could put together quite a snag-list of Liberal policies that were said to make life better for the middle class but didn't.Yet for me, it all comes together in Scott Reid’s famous 2005 gaffe. A top adviser to then-prime minister Paul Martin at the time, Reid dismissed a Conservative daycare plan to give families with young children $1,200 a year for child-care: “Don't give people 25 bucks a week to blow on beer and popcorn.”Beer and popcorn. Yes, that was all Canada's plebs cared about 19 years ago. Completely selfish and undeserving were we, and unworthy of the benevolent wisdom of the Paul Martin government. And these days, we’re 'burning up the planet' as we stampede to our great country’s lakes, forests and mountains. Still selfish and undeserving are we then, even after nine years of this Liberal government's benign sensitivity. Or something. These people have enjoyed so much privilege for so long, they make somebody else's road trip into a guilt trip. And it looks bad on them.Just a little over 16 months to go...
What’s the matter with these people? Have they no sense of irony?In a well-reported House of Commons slanging match last week, Liberal Health Minister Mark Holland mocked a Conservative proposal to cut gasoline taxes for the summer so that plain folk can at least enjoy the time-honoured tradition of a road trip. These days, that’s all a lot of us can afford, they said.I agree. My wife Judy and I are just back from an off-season road trip as far as Fairmont Hot Springs. Nice. Above all, affordable. Just.However, as Mr. Holland would have it, we — and all the other good folk trying to get out of town for a few days — are burning up the planet.Let’s imagine that I agree with him..What then is his boss doing if he takes a government Challenger west, when surf’s up in Tofino?According to widely reported access-to-information results, these ‘multiple’ flights each log a little over 11 hours, return. Rate of fuel consumption varies according to a number of factors normally of interest only to pilots, but as you pull your old minivan up to the pumps and squirt in the 10 gallons it’s going to take to get you to the campsite 200 miles away, you can be assured that the prime minister’s jet burns no less than 300 gallons per hour. (That would be gallons imperial, lest you think the RCAF measures in the puny gallons US.)So, let’s do the maths. Eleven hours at 300 gallons per hour is 3,300 gallons, for a prime ministerial surfing session and a decent meal perhaps, at the toney Wickaninnish Inn. Or catered more likely, at the ‘multi-million dollar oceanfront … owned by a Calgary-based e-commerce entrepreneur.’Those with an appetite for outrage are welcome to figure out how much fuel is burned hauling the prime minister and his entourage to the other exotic destinations he visits. (First stop, the Ethics Commissioner’s office for an up-to-date list.)Now, let's be fair. The prime minister is as much entitled to take a vacation as anybody else. And whatever we think of the incumbent, the office he holds poses unique security challenges when travelling. For the sake of the safety of other passengers on the plane, it makes complete sense to keep a prime minister off commercial flights.However… we can just do without the hypocrisy. The prime minister can bore a hole in the sky on some frivolous relaxation that’s out of the reach of most Canadians, but if ordinary Canadians take their kids to the beach, their health minister will scold them for ‘giving up the future of the planet?’C'mon. Naturally, when the Conservative proposal for a gasoline tax-holiday came up for the vote on Monday, the Trudeau-Singh coalition voted it down. We expected nothing else.But, here’s the thing. This kind of lordly contempt for the struggling masses seems built into the Liberal DNA and doesn’t change over time. We could put together quite a snag-list of Liberal policies that were said to make life better for the middle class but didn't.Yet for me, it all comes together in Scott Reid’s famous 2005 gaffe. A top adviser to then-prime minister Paul Martin at the time, Reid dismissed a Conservative daycare plan to give families with young children $1,200 a year for child-care: “Don't give people 25 bucks a week to blow on beer and popcorn.”Beer and popcorn. Yes, that was all Canada's plebs cared about 19 years ago. Completely selfish and undeserving were we, and unworthy of the benevolent wisdom of the Paul Martin government. And these days, we’re 'burning up the planet' as we stampede to our great country’s lakes, forests and mountains. Still selfish and undeserving are we then, even after nine years of this Liberal government's benign sensitivity. Or something. These people have enjoyed so much privilege for so long, they make somebody else's road trip into a guilt trip. And it looks bad on them.Just a little over 16 months to go...
