Justin Trudeau's island vacation should be the least of our concerns - Michael's essay

How many of us remember what important international conference former Tory Minister Bev Oda was attending in London in 2012? 

How many remember what the conference was about?

How many of us remember that she paid $16 for a glass of orange juice at a London hotel?

The conference may or may not have been important. But according to the reporting of the day, the $16 orange juice was crucial to the political life of the country.

Use the phrase expense and taxpayers in the same sentence, and the media light up like Parliament Hill on July 1st.- Michael Enright

Journalists who never spent a night in a high end London hotel were shocked. In fact, $16 for fresh orange juice is, or was, just about the going rate.

I suppose Ms. Oda could have saved the taxpayers' money by renting a bed-sit in Earl's Court and making her own baloney and marmite sandwiches.

Her career-ending mistake was to declare the OJ as a public expense to be covered by taxpayers. Use the phrase expense and taxpayers in the same sentence, and the media light up like Parliament Hill on July 1st.

Justin Trudeau's Christmas vacation with his family at the private island of the Aga Khan ignited a firestorm of anger across every media outlet, print and electronic.This past week, it was learned that the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner will investigate the  family holiday.

The Aga Khan was a friend of Pierre Trudeau and has known the son since infancy. If he wanted to exert some kind of malign influence, he didn't have to invite the man to his island.  He could use the phone.

Besides, the Aga Khan is beyond reproach, one of only four honorary Canadian citizens.

We have become a nation of political scolds. Especially the media. We yammer on about "the cult of entitlement" and greedy politicians.- Michael Enright

It was supremely stupid politically for Mr. Trudeau and his office to keep the visit quiet. In the first place, you can't keep a thing like that quiet; the public has a right to know where the PM is at all times. 

And secondly, we live in a time where perception is the most important element of modern politics and governance. How we feel about something, how the optics of some act might appear, is sometimes an automatic override of reality; somebody in Justin Trudeau's office should have been thinking about that.

We have become a nation of political scolds. Especially the media. We yammer on about "the cult of entitlement" and greedy politicians.

People are sleeping in winter doorways, our schools are falling apart, the expansion of food banks is a national disgrace, but we focus on how much a minister paid for a rental car. We can't get clean water to our native people but we can enthusiastically bitch about a prime ministerial helicopter ride. 

Politicians are easy targets these days; even the word politician is uttered with a pejorative sneer.- Michael Enright

Which is not to say our elected officials should not be scrutinized by a watchful press.

Knowing how our money is spent by governments is a bedrock principle of  democracy.  Which is why we have auditors general at every level keeping an eye on the books.

Most politicians I've known over the years work and are on call seven days a week. They like the prestige but aren't in it for the perks. Many, if not most, could probably do better in the private sector.  

Politicians are easy targets these days; even the word politician is uttered with a pejorative sneer.

There is a whiff of jealousy in all of this, summed up by author, professor and Fulbright scholar Andrew Cohen.

In his Globe and Mail column he writes: "We are accountants of envy, and the saga of the Aga Khan and Justin Trudeau is the latest entry in our bulging national ledger."

Click the button above to hear Michael's essay.