Front Burner - Anger grows over politicians’ pandemic travelling

Episode Date: January 4, 2021

You’ve probably heard the words “avoid non-essential travel” frequently since the COVID-19 pandemic was declared in Canada. But a growing number of provincial and federal politicians haven’t heeded that message. And as more stories emerge about vacations or travelling to see sick family members, many Canadians are furious. Today, Power and Politics host Vassy Kapelos discusses what we know so far and what the public health impacts of these revelations might be.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hello, I'm Jamie Poisson. Stay home. Avoid non-essential travel. How many times have you heard that message since the pandemic began? Hundreds? Thousands?

And I'm just going to go by my gut here, but I'm also going to guess that you not only heard that message, you also listened to it. Well, you know who didn't? A growing list of provincial and federal politicians. And big surprise, people are really angry about it. Today, Power and Politics host Vashi Kapelos joins me. This is FrontBburner. Hey Vashie, a very happy New Year's to you. Hi Jamie, happy New Year to you too. So before we get rolling today, I just want to note or just say that I did not go to St. Bart's or Hawaii or California over the holidays, although I totally wish that I had been able to.

What about you? No, I also stayed in beautiful Russell, Ontario for the duration of it. Sounds lovely. So let's start today in Ontario, where this whole story of politicians on winter break really erupted big time. Former finance minister, now former finance minister, Rod Phillips, he resigned on New Year's Eve just two days after News Talk 1010 broke the story that he'd been on holiday on the Caribbean island of St. Barts. What were you thinking? I've been asking myself the same thing over the last number of days.

Obviously, I made a significant error in judgment. And it was also eventually revealed that he had gone to Switzerland in August. And Vashi, you know, everybody that I know was talking about this. I felt like I couldn't really escape this conversation over the holidays. And not to be super obvious here, but what do you think it is about this and subsequent news of other politicians traveling abroad that has gotten people so worked up? Everybody I talked to is really, really angry about this. I think a number of things have really produced the reaction that has ended up unfolding since the Phillips story first broke. First of all,

up unfolding since the Phillips story first broke. First of all, most of us right now are living under a pretty severe lockdown. So our movements, even within our own circles, our own households, going to see relatives in long-term care homes, for example, all of them are very, very severely limited. So I think just initially that idea of like how we're living versus how people who have traveled to exotic locales, like in Philip's case, St. Bart's, that dichotomy was like, just didn't sit very easy. I think also we know that the government had issued a travel advisory months and months ago at the outset of the pandemic. It's on the federal government's website. It's on most of the provincial government's website saying, like, unless your travel is essential, don't go. I want to remind all Canadians that they should avoid non-essential travel outside of our country until further notice. Let me be clear. If you're abroad, it's time for you to come home. Right. And then I think also there's just the idea, this common

refrain that we've heard over and over as these lockdowns were announced, as these restrictions and on our movements and for people who own businesses on their businesses, which very much affect their livelihoods were announced, this call to, you know, we're all in it together. Please don't do anything that you don't have to. Please don't get together with people outside of your household. Please don't travel. A message Ontario Premier Doug Ford reinforced while Phillips was away. Every time you take a trip, it puts people in jeopardy. Hunker down. Stay home.

Stay in your own homes as much as possible. It's sort of the stay home time, right? These politicians were saying that and then doing something very different than they were saying. And I just think it's easy for people to grasp. It sort of hits on something that is uncomfortable between politicians and the public a lot of the time. Like what's good for them is different than what's good for us or what they say is good for us. And so it just hasn't sit well at all. Constituents in his writing aren't pleased. These people are telling people to lock down but they themselves do not follow their own

rules. It's not fair because everybody else is doing what they're supposed to do. It's part of the community. Right and speaking about that idea like these refrains that we all have to make sacrifices here. I want to talk about one real point of contention with the former finance minister's social media presence and one very fateful Zoom meeting. And so Phillips, he goes to St. Barts on December 13th, and then December 15th, he tweets a photo of himself visiting small businesses. On December 16th, he tweets a photo of himself visiting small businesses. On December 16th, he does a Zoom meeting with a photo of Queens Park in the background.

And much has been made of the fact that maybe you can hear waves in the background. Great to see them work so close together. But it's just an example. I think faith communities in general. I don't know if they're waves. Much has also been made of the fact that he was wearing a sweater and it was very hot in St. Barts, you know. And then on Christmas Eve, he posts a video message where he's sitting next to a fireplace and sort of delivering a message. Now, I know that this Christmas is a bit different than Christmases in the past.

We're meeting virtually and online and not able to be in person with as many family and friends as we'd like to. And I want to thank each and every one of you for what we are doing to protect our most vulnerable while we celebrate this very, very special but challenging holiday season. And, you know, he also tweets this reference to sacrifices being made by Ontarians and frontline healthcare workers, what you were just talking about. And Bashi, Phillips and others have defended the social media posts. They say it's typical to record these kind of messages ahead of time. And, you know, putting aside the message about sacrifices, you know, what do you make of that? I should note that it's something that's come up in subsequent revelations about politicians on break, this idea that they post this stuff ahead of time.

Yeah, look, this adds insult to injury. Let's be realistic here. I mean, I listened very carefully to the interview that Minister Phillips gave or former Minister Phillips gave when he landed from St. Barts in the airport. I did that to promote Ajax businesses, to promote the COVID-19 supports that we have for small businesses across the province and to wish my constituents a holiday greeting. That said, I understand in the circumstances why it seemed insincere and I apologize for that, but it was not the intention. I listened, I read very closely the statements of defense around these from communications officials within his department and other departments. Yes. Is it true that these are done in advance?

Sure. Is it normal to put a sweater on when you're in St. Barts and to use a fake background of the Ontario legislature and to insinuate that you are not in St. Barts when you are after you've told people not to leave the country for anything other than essential reasons? No, that's I mean, like we have to do a reality check, right? Like that's not normal. That's not cool.

That adds insult to injury, really. I mean, it's one thing to go there, to go against the recommendations that you've made, to be able to enjoy a trip that most of your constituents are not able to because of many of the restrictions that your government has imposed. But then to, you know, communicate to the public in ways that give the impression that you are not doing that, it makes it look like you knew something was wrong, first of all. And second of all, like you're attempting to maybe not directly mislead them, but you're certainly not coming clean. Right. And so another twist that I know caused a lot of outrage was when news of Phillips' St.

Bart's trip broke, Premier Doug Ford said he was disappointed in the minister and he said he told him to return immediately. But then it came to light that Ford knew that he was in St. Bart's shortly after he had gone there, sort of in the middle of December. And has Ford explained why he had that knowledge and didn't tell anybody for two weeks or why he didn't demand that Phillips come home sooner? Yeah, there hasn't been a huge amount of opportunity to question the Premier about that,

but I have listened to the statements that he made initially, which was that he found out he was gone, had a phone conversation with him. We're going to have a very tough conversation when he gets back. I can tell you there can't be rules for elected people and non-elected people. And then he said. My mistake. And I take full responsibility. At that time, I should have said, get your backside back into Ontario. And I didn't do that. So there was certainly, you know, the premier was catching some flack. I think

there will be a lot more questions about that specific timeline when he does make himself available to the media again, further into the new year. But now when you compare it to other, you know, other officials, for example, or other premiers where there's been no sanctions or no allegation of wrongdoing to the people who have traveled, it does seem like the premier in Ontario took at least a harder line with this minister eventually than has been the case elsewhere. So let's talk about Alberta. Let's jump to Alberta, which is a province that, like Ontario, has been facing a really difficult backdrop. Jason Kenney finally introduced really strict restrictions there in December after they were grappling with more active coronavirus cases in Ontario. And despite having only a third of the population, ICUs were reaching near capacity. As of today,

we are banning all outdoor social gatherings, period. Also, effectively, immediately, we are expanding the mask mandate to apply to all indoor places and indoor workplaces. And after the Rod Phillips St. Bart story, it felt like the floodgates really opened in Alberta, hey? Like, there is quite a list here that we'll go through. But I want to start with Tracy Allard, Alberta's municipal affairs minister. So she said also that she has regretted traveling abroad. But she also noted that her trip to Hawaii was a yearly family tradition, which, you know, I know set a lot of people off because, well, a lot of people gave up their, you know, non-Hawaii related family traditions this year, like just plain old get togethers with other

people in the same house. But also she has a really important role in the pandemic response, right? Yeah, she's partially in charge or to a large degree of emergency management. So obviously, we're in an emergency. Alberta more specifically is an emergency. So she has a role to play in the committee that makes a lot of those decisions when it comes to COVID restrictions and the way in which the government imposes them. And then she also has a role to play in the vaccine rollout, which is a whole other story that I'm sure you'll be talking about a lot this week, because it's going very slowly in a number of provinces, both Alberta and Ontario included. Hers is an interesting one. I listened

to her phone press conference as well, in which I felt like she was genuinely very apologetic. She seemed very contrite, very, you know, she seemed to realize that her actions had had a huge effect on people. And I know that my actions seem dismissive of the frustration and grief that many have experienced. For that, I am truly and deeply sorry. But at the same time, you hit the nail on the head, Jamie, when you were like, you know, her reason was that it's a family tradition. Like what? It felt like, I felt like in my head, I was thinking like, what world have you been living in? There are so many families right now who can't even see people in long-term care homes, their mothers and their fathers and their grandparents whom they would normally have a family tradition of

seeing over the holidays as well. Like it was, it just seemed, you were left with the impression that she was almost like living in an altered reality, right? Where the conversations that have ensued, the things that we've heard from her premier over the last number of months, like, don't gather inside, don't gather outside. She sort of almost felt as though she realizes now they're applicable to her, but didn't at the time, which is wild. I want to take this opportunity to acknowledge the frustration and anger that my actions have caused. Many Albertans responsibly chose to forego dearly held traditions this Christmas with family in order to follow public health recommendations and guidelines.

I'm going to go. Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. their own household income. That's not a typo, 50%. That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. So it's now been revealed that at least seven other Alberta MLAs and government staffers also went on international vacations. I'm going to read a whole list here. MLA Pat Rain posted photos of himself in a cave in Mexico on his Facebook, along with posts telling Albertans to stay at home and save lives. MLA Tanya Furr went to Las Vegas. MLA Jason Stefan went to Arizona. MLA Jeremy Nixon also went to Hawaii, so did two education ministry press secretaries.

And Premier Jason Kenney's chief of staff, Jamie Huckabay, he went on holiday to the UK and he was there when Canada banned flights from the country because of this new, more contagious variant of COVID-19. And Huckabay actually circumvented this ban by flying from the UK to the US and from there to Alberta. And Vashi, it does seem like a lot of people. What do you think is going on here? I wish I knew. I can't necessarily explain. Each of them seem to have sort of individual reasons. Some of them have made Facebook posts, for example, explaining why they felt they needed to go to a certain location, why to them it was essential. Others, it makes it seem like it's, you know, their reasonings clearly aren't essential.

I think what's the sheer number of them, though, is why you're seeing the reaction that you are in Alberta. I know that there are a number of people who delineate between, and I should point this out, between staffers and elected officials. A lot of them call for more scrutiny on elected officials, for example, than on staffers. In any event, the sheer number of elected officials, even if you separate them, is a lot. And I think it has a direct correlation with the reaction that you're seeing from all sides of the political spectrum in Alberta right now. People look down here dying. Your team's in Hawaii and Great Britain.

Your morals are shot. Can you smell the rot? Allard family tradition. And tell me a little bit about that reaction. Well, I worked for three years in Alberta, so I can say just judging from the columnists, for example, that I've seen who are sometimes or even in some cases normally supportive of a lot of what the conservative government puts forward there, their reaction has been visceral. Right. And they have a huge impact having worked there. I know how much of an impact they have on people in Alberta. And I think there was, you know, a group of people who already didn't like the UCP government, and they are, as you would have expected, upset at this. Whereas I think what's really telling here is that many people, even those who were against the quote-unquote lockdown that was imposed in Alberta in early December, are also really upset about this. And I just think that it really fuels this idea there that politicians are out of touch with the everyday Albertan. And whether you support the lockdown measures or you don't, like you're having the same reaction right now, which is

a political mess for the premier. And a lot of it, I should say, is fueled by how the premier himself reacted to all this. You know, let's talk about Jason Kenney specifically. You know, how has he reacted here? So this was where I think it kind of went off the rails a little bit for a lot of Albertans, because he held a press conference on New Year's Day. And essentially, he said he took responsibility himself. on New Year's Day. And essentially he said he took responsibility himself. For not having clearly set out or communicated a policy against international travel for senior decision makers in government, I should have done so. And now he was telling them all to come home and the direction was clear and that there as a result would not be any consequences for the people who traveled.

And I do not believe that I can sanction people who complied with the law, with the public health orders, and who, in fact, participated in the kind of safe travel that our government has facilitated. And I think it was that message that fell pretty flat at the time with a number of Albertans. Again, like I said, from all different political persuasions, all aspects of the political spectrum, because it just, the idea that because he didn't explicitly say it, they didn't know. I mean, there have been warnings on, as we mentioned earlier, government websites saying not to travel other than for essential reasons. I mean, how can a person just individually not know as they're conveying the message to their

constituents that they have to close their business, close their restaurant, close their bar, not, Alberta had a forbidden any kind of social gathering outside your household, indoors or outdoors. As you're communicating those messages for the past number of weeks, how did you not know in your gut that leaving, you know, and traveling to a location like Hawaii, for example, was not antithetical to what you were telling everyone else in your constituency to do? And that was never acknowledged by the premier. Look, I think it was a significant error in judgment. I think it was a significant error in judgment. And Minister Allard has told me that herself and has or will be issuing a statement to that effect. And that's why you saw Don Braid and Rick Bell

and other columnists that I reference, you know, kind of lose it on the premier and say, this is a really big deal and you got it wrong. All right, so moving on from Alberta, I want to talk to you about some news on the federal level. Federal NDP MP in Manitoba, Nikki Ashton, went to Greece to see her ailing grandmother recently, and the party has now stripped her of her shadow cabinet roles. And now, late Sunday, the Liberals are saying five MPs have traveled outside the country since March

on what they say are family matters. Three in the summer, they apparently informed the government whip, and then two in December. Quebec MP Samir Zuberi visited his wife's ailing grandfather in Delaware, and Ontario MP Kamal Khaira went to Seattle to attend a small memorial service for a family member. And they apparently didn't tell the whip about this travel. And Khaira has now stepped down from a parliamentary secretary role and Zuberi from committee roles. And Vashi, what's your reaction to all of this? Okay, so what's really interesting here, I think, Jamie, is the timing, because it looks like

following the revelations in Ontario, in Alberta, federal parties started canvassing all their MPs, trying to determine if any of them had traveled. And what really stands out to me is that in both the case of Nikki Ashton and the two MPs for the Liberals that traveled or who traveled rather in December, they did not let the government whip know they were going somewhere. And so as a result, they're losing their kind of extra parliamentary roles. Clearly, there are consequences right across the board for all political parties. And now at the federal level, too, there seems to be, I think, like, as far as the public is concerned, there's a bit of a reckoning for all of them, regardless of which party and regardless of the specific circumstances. Talking about specific circumstances

a little bit more, the cases in December where we have some details here, Nikki Ashton and the two liberal MPs, they do reference ailing or dead family members. And do you think that this will be perceived differently? I think in one, you know, one way to look at it is yes, I think there's a difference between, you know, going to the funeral of someone who's dead or seeing someone who is dying or of poor health and going on a vacation. On the other hand, like the rules are the rules. There are a lot of people in Ontario or in Alberta who weren't able to even go to their family members' funerals. So I feel like there will be a tiny bit of leniency, you about the effect of all of this beyond the politics here. And so, you know, I know that we haven't gone through even the whole list of politicians traveling abroad here. Our colleague Charles Rusnell in Edmonton is saying that there are UCP MLAs that are refusing to answer their questions right now about whether they traveled outside elsewhere.

MLA's that are refusing to answer their questions right now, but whether they traveled outside elsewhere, Quebec liberal MNA Pierre Arcand was spotted on holiday in Barbados, Saskatchewan party MLA Joe Hargrave went to Palm Springs to sell a personal property. And beyond the political costs here, you know, what else do you think is at stake? Well, I think there's very clearly all the politics of this that we've discovered and discussed rather and the political impact of it. But now comes us entering into this phase of the pandemic before mass vaccinations begin. We come to a time where we continue to need to be able to trust our government, right, and the decisions that they're making. And that trust was already, to be fair, fraying in certain parts of this country and in certain constituencies and in certain parts of the population. Not everybody

is on the same page to the degree that it felt like we were back in March. But now you have a time where they're going to continue to impose restrictions on our behaviors because we simply don't have mass vaccination against the virus. And I know there was a study done out of the UK. It's not peer reviewed yet, but it looked at, for example, the prime minister's former chief of staff there who had made some controversial trips and how that had an impact on public confidence in the decisions and the health measures that were imposed by the government. So that's something we've got to keep our eye on now. You know, you hope that it doesn't have this mass effect

where people all of a sudden don't have faith and confidence in the health measures that are being imposed. But there is that risk, and this certainly might amplify a problem that was already brewing under the surface. Right. All right, Fashi, thank you so much. We'll talk to you soon. Anytime.

Thanks, Jamie. All right, so after Vashi and I spoke on Sunday, some more news on this front. It came to light that Alberta MLA Tani Yao traveled abroad during the holidays as well. The United Conservative Party said he is in Mexico and cannot be reached for comment at this time, according to Global News. And some more travel-related news as well. according to Global News. And some more travel-related news as well. The federal government says that they are actively looking at ways to address a loophole that could allow returning travelers to collect up to $1,000 a day in benefits while they quarantine.

The Canada Recovery Sickness Benefit is supposed to be a paid sick leave option for workers who need to isolate because they either have COVID-19 or were exposed to it. But on Saturday, the newspaper La Presse reported that the benefit could allow people who are coming back from non-essential trips, like sunny vacations, to collect that money while they're quarantining. Okay, that is all for today. I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening to FrontBurner, and we'll see you tomorrow.