MacDougall: Trudeau and his PMO should know how bad secret-vacation optics are

There he goes again.

No, literally, there he goes again. Justin Trudeau was back in the Caribbean last week for another Christmas vacation. And, once again, his office spent the better part of that week being cagey about his location.

The Bahamas, in case you’re interested. At least most Canadians have heard of the Bahamas, as opposed to last year’s séjour in Saint Kitts & Nevis. But fear not, dear taxpayer, the prime minister will soon be back in Ottawa working hard on behalf of the middle-class.

This repeat of an avoidable error should be worrisome for the government and its supporters.

Let me head off the obvious objection: I’m OK with Canadian prime ministers having a holiday. So are most Canadians. The prime minister can, and should, take time off.

And I know full well that the prime minister of our country can’t fly commercial, and that reimbursing for the equivalent of a commercial fare is now standard practice thanks to Stephen Harper. I also know the RCMP sends their protective detail wherever our leader goes; heaven forbid Trudeau is harassed by the paparazzi while he plays with his kids on the beach.

Now, you can either take these political realities on board, as Stephen Harper did, and choose to limit your Christmas vacations to your hometown and Harrington Lake to lower the impact on the public purse, or you can pop off for a bit of sun and fun. But you’ve got to expect criticism for one over the other for the simple reason that one costs much more than the other.

The Prime Minister’s Office knows this. That’s why it and its talking heads will be out in full force to defend the principle of a vacation, as opposed to the costs of that vacation, which last year added up to more than $100,000 for the RCMP and Department of National Defence. They’ll try to deflect from the fact the prime minister chose the more expensive option.

True, we can be horribly small with this stuff, but Trudeau has himself to blame. The problem with ascending to power promising to be more Catholic than the Pope is that it doesn’t leave room for sin. Here, Trudeau is falling down on two fronts.

The prime minister campaigned on a pledge to middle class the middle class until the middle class was middle classing all the way to the middle-class bank. Sticking taxpayers for the additional costs of a foreign vacation is, to put this in language the PMO will care about, at odds with the government’s brand.

Second, the Canadian people took Trudeau’s pledge of total transparency seriously; he can’t be opaque when it suits, when his deeds don’t match his words.

Contrast his lofty campaign rhetoric on transparency with the Christmas debacle, when the Trudeau government: a) refused to disclose Saint Kitts & Nevis as the vacation spot of choice until TMZ outed them; b) refused to disclose who joined him on government transport; c) redacted the names of Trudeau family members and their nanny from the Challenger jet manifest when it was ATIP’ed by the Conservatives; and d) refused to release the full — and significant — cost of the vacation until a few short weeks ago. I can think of many descriptors for this year-long run of events, but “transparent” isn’t one of them.

BACKGROUND: Trudeau will reimburse government for costs of family travel to exclusive Caribbean resort

A Prime Minister’s Office of words and deeds would: a) offer the (general) destination without the press having to use their pliers; b) proactively disclose the taxpayer-subsidized members of the retinue; and c) own the principle of prime ministerial vacations and the responsibility for costs associated with their choices.

The obstinate refusal to release the vacation information is most easily read as worry that the people won’t like it. Owning up to it, and defending the extra cost wholeheartedly, would help to quell a protracted uproar. If it’s justifiable to stick taxpayers with the cost, then get out and defend it. It will still be a “bad” story, but it won’t roll out in multiple acts, as this recent vacation has already done with its week of “Where’s Waldo”?

Largesse remains a blind spot 15 months into this government; the last thing the Liberals should want is to lose their grip on the middle class. Renovating 24 Sussex, putting nannies on the public payroll, fancy features in glossy magazines, and lavish vacations, even at your own partial expense, might be survivable each on their own, but bundled together they threaten to blow an entitled hole in the side of The Good Ship Liberal.

The Trudeaus ought to know a boat that’s taking on water isn’t of any use on vacation or, more importantly, in government.

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Andrew MacDougall is a London-based communications consultant and was director of communications to former prime minister Stephen Harper.