Imagine telling a lower-income family you have $2,000 but have to use it camping

Chris Selley

The government will ‘partner with Via Rail to make these opportunities accessible’ despite Via going nowhere near any of the prescribed camping sites

When I overheard talk about Justin Trudeau showing up to his Thursday morning press conference by canoe, I assumed it was in jest. Arrival by watercraft has an infamous history in Canadian politics, as Stockwell Day can attest, and while Trudeau solos a canoe with aplomb he’s not above a maritime pratfall: Just two years ago, while trying to insert himself into a kayak, the man went arse-over-teakettle into the Pacific.

But then Trudeau strutted past the assembled reporters, wearing outdoor trousers and a PFD, toward the Lake Laurentian Nature Chalet. (Insert “canoe storage’ joke here.) And a few minutes later, out he came, around a little point, paddling toward us in a red fiberglass canoe. After noodling around for a while he was joined by some local youths and they headed out a bit into the lake, a drone buzzing overhead. No doubt you’ll see the footage before this campaign is done.

And then, safely ashore, he announced a new commitment to land, water and wildlife protection and — I am not kidding — a new investment in camping. The Liberals want to “ensure that every young Canadian, by grade eight, is taught the skills to camp.” A new “Experience Canada” program will help “75,000 lower-income families spend up to four days in one of Canada’s national or provincial parks every year,” the backgrounder document explains, offering “a travel bursary of up to $2,000 to experience places across the country from Killarney, Banff, Gros Morne, and the Cape Breton Highlands

The government will “partner with Via Rail to make these opportunities accessible and affordable,” despite Via going nowhere near any of those places and being of precisely no use as long-distance transport for anyone with less than a teacher’s or politician’s worth of vacation time and the patience of a pope.

So, let’s be clear: This is bananas. Imagine telling a lower-income family you have $2,000 to help them out, and then revealing that they have to use it camping.

The only thing more absurd might be the fact that had Andrew Lawton, a research and journalism fellow at the True North Centre for Public Policy, shown up and asked for media accreditation, he would have been denied. As if only the most highly credentialed journalists from the most august and established organs could be trusted to report on camping subsidies.

Lawton has been a fairly well-known broadcaster in London, Ont., a columnist for Global News and a contributor to many other outlets. My impression of him is generally that of a polite, harmless contrarian, albeit with some impolite blots on his copybook for which he has apologized. Yet the Liberals denied Lawton accreditation for an event in Brampton, Ont., on Sunday, and again at each successive event he showed up at this week in British Columbia’s Lower Mainland and then back in Ontario.

full story at https://nationalpost.com/news/politics/election-2019/chris-selley-the-liberal-campaign-trail-is-a-place-for-absurdities-but-not-much-else