Canada’s opposition Conservative Party slammed Liberal Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for using two planes during his 40-day election campaign, despite previously boasting about his party’s bid to tackle climate change in a recent meeting with young environmental activist Greta Thunberg, who went to North America by boat in order to avoid leaving any carbon footprint at all.
In a press release issued by the Conservative Party during the French-language leaders' debate hosted by TVA this Wednesday, Canada's Tories condemned Trudeau and his party’s “hypocrisy”, while revealing photographs of two aircraft used during the campaign trip marked with travel logos – one for Trudeau and his team and another solely for transporting the accompanying cargo.
"Despite marching in climate strikes, lecturing everybody else on lowering emissions and imposing a carbon tax on hard-working Canadians, Justin Trudeau and the Liberals are secretly using two aircraft to campaign in this election", the press release read.
Leader of the Conservative Party Andrew Scheer, who has himself recently been embroiled in a scandal following revelations that he has been a dual Canadian and American citizen since birth, despite his party repeatedly criticising dual citizenship among politicians, also slammed his opponent during the debate and in a post-event press conference by calling Trudeau a “carbon hypocrite”.
“I don’t know what types of props or costumes or camping equipment he’s bringing along, but he’s made his choice”, the Tory leader said, as cited by Canada's CBC broadcaster. “If he thinks it’s okay to emit far more emissions than our campaign is emitting, we’re going to hold him to account for his hypocrisy”.
Justin Trudeau did not dismiss the allegations about using two planes for his campaign trip, arguing instead that in the aftermath of the TVA debate, having a cargo plane allows his party “to do more events in more parts of the country and meet more Canadians” and that the Liberal Party was buying carbon offsets to reduce the impact of the emissions from the two planes and party buses.
“I will highlight that Andrew Scheer and his Conservatives did not purchase carbon offsets for their transportation because they think pollution should be free”, said Trudeau.
The practice of buying carbon offsets means making financial contributions to projects that potentially reduce greenhouse-gas emissions.
Justin Trudeau is still embroiled in a scandal following the publication of photos and videos featuring him wearing brown and blackface makeup at parties in his early years – an embarrassing matter that came to light just a few weeks ahead of Canada’s federal elections.