Trudeau flew 92,000 kilometres during summer, including vacations

Federal cabinet scrutinized Canadians for taking summer vacations earlier this year while Prime Minister Justin Trudeau jet set nearly 100,000 kilometres since June.

From June 1 through September 12, Trudeau flew 92,100 kilometres on government aircraft, according to data from publicly-accessible flight trackers. Among them included a July 21 flight from Ottawa to Tofino, B.C., for a summer vacation.

He has logged 181,950 kilometres across 68 flights so far this year, mainly aboard a Bombardier Challenger 650 business jet.

Deputy Conservative Leader Melissa Lantsman told The Toronto Sun that the prime minister’s travels are an insult to Canadians, given the number of taxpayers unable to afford summer trips.

“While some travel is necessary for a prime minister, Justin Trudeau has already shown Canadians that he never misses an opportunity to go on lavish trips and rub shoulders with elites around the world at taxpayer expense, while ignoring the suffering he is causing at home in Canada,” she said.

On June 12, the prime minister flew a 7,100-kilometre journey, to the G7 summit in Taranto, Italy from Ottawa.

“What’s worse, is that while the Liberals were busy saying Canadians who take their families on road trips and summer vacations are guilty of burning down the world, the Liberals were racking up thousands of kilometres of jet setting carbon hypocrisy,” continued MP Lantsman.

Data revealed that 47 flights did not exceed 400 kilometres, including a post-vacation flight from Tofino to Vancouver on August 1.

Requests for flight cost tables by the Sun weren’t returned at publication and official costs for the Challenger 650 fleet are not yet available.

Trudeau’s cavalier approach to governance became apparent after learning he took 680 "personal" days since 2015. Personal days, excluding election campaigns, happened once every four days (24%).

Among the "personal" days are family vacations abroad, including 31 days in Costa Rica, another nine days in Jamaica, and eight days in the Bahamas, where he breached conflict-of-interest rules by visiting Aga Khan’s private island.

At the time, Trudeau had brief out-of-town getaways, spending 88 days predominantly in British Columbia, including stays in Tofino. However, he spent two-thirds of his "personal" days (68%), within Ottawa.

A Conservative government would “demonstrate respect” on government travel, MP Lantsman said.

The Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) earlier told the Post it publishes the itineraries "in the spirit of openness and transparency," which Trudeau’s predecessor did not do, they noted.

"Canada is one of the few countries in the world to provide this level of daily transparency with the leader’s schedule," said the statement.

The PMO also iterated he still works on “personal” days, calling any suggestion to the contrary “false and absurd.”

Alex Dhaliwal

Journalist and Writer

Alex Dhaliwal is a Political Science graduate from the University of Calgary. He has actively written on relevant Canadian issues with several prominent interviews under his belt.

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