OTTAWA – After years of partisan rancour and division, federal and provincial politicians from the three major parties have finally found an issue they agree: lecturing Canadians to stay home due to the pandemic while they travel abroad.
“Sometimes we spend so much time focusing on areas where we disagree we forget there is a lot more that unites us than divides us,” said former Ontario Finance Minister Rod Phillips. “Specifically, the thing that unites us is knowing that elected officials are a superior group of individuals to whom travel restrictions and multiple health warnings do not apply.”
“On that issue we’re not Tories or Grits or Dippers. We’re Canadian politicians,” he added.
Canadian politics has turned more combative in recent years as the Conservatives drifted right and the Liberals drifted left during election season. So much so that many observers thought the days of politicians putting aside their party labels and working together to behave as an elitist group of ‘do as I say not as I do’ egomaniacs was long gone. But apparently not.
“I used to see my friends across the aisle as foes to be defeated. Now I realize they’re hardworking Canadians with the means to travel and the guilt free conscience to do it during a global pandemic. Just like me,” said Liberal MP Sameer Zubari.
Still, some rejected the inclination to describe this as a rare moment of unity.
“It’s not fair to say Liberals and NDPers behaved just like the Conservatives. They went on holiday. We were primarily travelling to see sick family members,” said MP Niki Ashton, under the belief that only politicians could possibly have sick family members living in other countries.
Still, Canadians should take heart at knowing there are some areas where all our political parties are aligned. In addition to COVID travelling there is also liking hockey, eating pizza, and doing absolutely nothing about billionaires hoarding their wealth overseas to avoid paying tax.
