Cory Morgan: When It Comes to Limiting Carbon Emissions, Trudeau Is Not Leading by Example

Commentary

While many Canadians haven’t been able to travel out of the country for years due to the COVID-19 pandemic and others haven’t been able to travel due to passport renewals being caught in bureaucratic limbo, Canada’s jet-setting prime minister, Justin Trudeau, has flown to Costa Rica for a family vacation.

I don’t think the prime minister should be denied a vacation. His work is stressful and he deserves to spend time with his loved ones. Trudeau’s tone-deaf hypocrisy is what makes a person sour. The rest of Canada is told to cut back on their consumption and reevaluate their lifestyles to combat climate change. However, Trudeau continues to live a life of conspicuous consumption. He seems to be spending more time in the air than he does at ground for trivial purposes.

Trudeau’s last family trip to Costa Rica cost taxpayers $57. 000 in flight costs even before the cost of housing the flight crew for the visit was accounted for. Trudeau’s trip by Trudeau’s private plane generated more carbon dioxide than any family could possibly produce in their lifetime. Are we really all taking on the climate change fight?

Nobody expects the prime Minister to take his family on a trip through Ottawa while staying at motels along the way. He would still be well served to reduce the lifestyle of luxury while living in austerity because of record-breaking inflation, climate change policies and rising living costs.

The prime minister is granted exclusive access to the taxpayer-funded Harrington Lake mansion, which has several acres of private land on Harrington Lake. Taxpayers spent an eye-popping $11.7 million renovating the estate since 2019. Are the spaces still adequate or luxurious enough to accommodate the Trudeau Family? Evidently not. It could be put up on Airbnb if he doesn’t want to use it. This will allow the tax payers who purchased it the chance to have access and help us recover our costs.

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Demonstrations of moral hypocrisy can take down even the most popular of leaders–particularly when citizens are suffering. Ask Boris Johson . It took some time but the do as I say, not as I do actions of Johnson and his staff at 10 Downing Street during the height of the pandemic caught up to him and led to his resignation. While citizens remained locked down in the spring of 2020 at great social and financial expense, it was revealed that Johnson was holding parties with his staff and selected guests. Johnson was never forgiven by the public, and they shouldn’t have.

Canada is facing increasing inflation and possible recession as interest rates rise. Proposed fertilizer cuts and the carbon tax add to costs for energy and food. These policies were supposedly put in place to combat climate change. However, if the prime minster won’t sacrifice his personal time to decrease emissions, then why shouldn’t anyone else? They will revolt if they realize that they are being targeted to be the ones responsible for implementing emission reduction policies, while their elected leaders won’t.

Effective leadership is about leading by example. When we observe our leaders leading by example, it is much easier to agree to legislation or pressures to modify our behavior.

My father caught me smoking while I was young and sent me to jail several times. If he hadn’t smoked more than a pack per day, his opposition to me smoking would have been stronger. He was right to blame me for my years of smoking, but it wasn’t his goal to convince a young rebel to quit when he could’t show the same will power.

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Justin Trudeau’s efforts to reduce emissions are doomed to fail if he doesn’t cut his excesses. He travels the country in a private plane for photos for trivial things like cherry picking in BC ?. How is he to be considered serious?

Citizens can forgive and forget many things. Trudeau was let off the hook by voters for his past habit of wearing blackface to events. The WE Charity scandal was a case of people letting the corruption rumors slide. Even though Trudeau was visiting Aga Khan’s private Island, voters ignored the conflict of interests even though it was found to violate government ethics rules. Canadians have a reputation for being some of the most compassionate people on Earth.

Hypocrisy, however, is the place where most people draw the line. Trudeau will be resentful if people feel that we don’t all share the same vision. Trudeau’s “let them have cake” attitude may be the end of his term as Prime Minister.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.

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Cory Morgan, a Calgary columnist.

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