Juno News - The hypocrisy of Canada's politicians

00:00:00.000 Happy New Year. I truly hope this will be a better year than 2020. Good riddance to that one.

00:00:12.460 I, like many, if not most of you, spent a quiet New Year's Eve with my lady. We didn't do the

00:00:19.360 champagne thing, but we had some nice wine and watched some movies. Such is life in 2020 with

00:00:25.700 the COVID pandemic. The news on New Year's seemed to focus on hypocritical politicians.

00:00:32.400 Not that that is a new thing, but it is the breeziness of this hypocrisy that has shocked

00:00:38.800 and angered Canadians. First, we had Ontario MPP Rod Phillips, who was also Finance Minister.

00:00:46.580 He tweeted to his constituents from St. Bart's in the Caribbean. On at least one occasion,

00:00:52.100 he even wore a winter sweater and recorded it in front of a fireplace to give the illusion that

00:00:57.940 he was still in Ontario. That sweater must have been awful warm in St. Bart's. We don't know for

00:01:05.100 sure that Premier Doug Ford was aware of his trip in advance, but when the media got a sniff of it,

00:01:12.100 Ford ordered Phillips home early. Phillips promptly apologized publicly, and by the time he got back

00:01:18.980 to Ontario, he resigned. Out of guilt or was he pushed, we just don't know. Then the revelation

00:01:26.540 started to come fast and furious. Alberta Minister of Municipal Affairs, Tracy Allard, filmed a holiday

00:01:34.660 message on Twitter in a warm sweater and with a large Christmas tree in the background. Then she

00:01:40.180 promptly boarded a flight to Hawaii. I should add that Alberta was under limited lockdown restrictions

00:01:45.980 at the time and mask mandates. Regulations that she helped put in place and helped to pass. She would

00:01:56.220 be hard pressed to plead ignorance. She even tweeted to her constituents from a beach in Hawaii. Her boss,

00:02:04.700 Premier Jason Kenney, claims he didn't know about her trip to the Aloha State, but like Doug Ford,

00:02:11.580 when he learned, he ordered her to return. She was out of the country from December 19 to December 26.

00:02:20.060 Apparently, it's too dangerous to eat at a local restaurant, but take a 10-hour flight to a tropical

00:02:25.980 paradise and eat at all the restaurants you want, and that is fine. Not to be outdone, MLA for lesser slave

00:02:33.820 lake. Pat Wren posted a Christmas message from an adventure park in Cancun, but it didn't end there.

00:02:41.340 Manitoba NDP MP Nikki Ashton tweeted out a stay home message, and then for some reason after the

00:02:49.100 Christmas message, Ashton hopped a plane and traveled to Greece to visit her grandmother.

00:02:55.500 Inexplicably, she admitted that on Twitter, her social awareness seems very limited.

00:03:02.700 Ashton lost her critic position within caucus. The NDP statement said Canadians expect their

00:03:09.100 representatives to quote, lead by example, unquote. Then on Friday night, Post Media confirmed Calgary

00:03:16.460 Pagan MLA Tanya Fehr and Calgary Klein MLA Jeremy Nixon each traveled abroad in December.

00:03:25.020 They both went to the U.S. Fehr also tweeted out holiday greetings to her constituents,

00:03:31.180 right before boarding a plane to quote, visit her sister, unquote, in Las Vegas.

00:03:36.940 She has since admitted her transgression and apologized on Twitter. Politicians and members

00:03:43.980 of the entitled class being hypocritical is nothing new, but these recent examples are egregious.

00:03:50.460 Or, as my True North colleague Andrew Lawton said yesterday, quote, if public officials don't

00:03:57.100 have to follow the rules, why do we have to, end quote. Good question.

00:04:02.860 Good question. For True North, I'm Leo Knight.

Juno News - January 02, 2021