Mark Strahl, Conservative Shadow Minister for Transportation, released the following statement regarding the thousands of Canadians stranded this holiday season:
“While Justin Trudeau is flying off to Jamaica on his private jet and Liberal Transport Minister Omar Alghabra is focused on producing a flashy Santa Claus video for social media, thousands of Canadians have been left stranded in the cold, sitting in planes for 12 hours or on trains for 18 hours. They have been forced to sleep on the cold, hard floors in overcrowded airports, train stations, and waiting areas, hoping that they can finally get home to be with their loved ones.
“Justin Trudeau’s Liberals held high profile summits and promised that there wouldn’t be a repeat of the travel chaos from the summer. Chaos caused by their needless ArriveCAN application, punitive COVID mandates and testing requirements, and staffing shortages. Liberal Minister Alghabra even assured Canadians he is ‘going to do everything we can in government’ to prevent issues with holiday travel and declared that he was ‘confident’ things would run smoothly.
“But they have broken that promise. The chaos is back and Canadians are paying the price. They are now sacrificing their holiday season again because of a broken government that cannot seem to get anything right. Bad weather is no excuse for utter incompetence and inaction on the part of Trudeau’s Liberal government, especially in Canada where cold weather and winter storms are the norm and not the exception.
“And while thousands of Canadians will miss seeing their family members for the first time in years, Justin Trudeau will simply jump on a private jet and head to Jamaica to relax in the sun. Perhaps if he knew what it was like to wait five days in the airport or get stuck on a crowded plane for hours on the tarmac, Canadians wouldn’t be experiencing this all over again.
“Justin Trudeau is out of touch and Canadians are suffering at the hands of his broken transportation system. A Conservative government under Pierre Poilievre will fix Canada’s transportation system and demand answers from millionaire CEOs for why their airlines have failed so many Canadians, especially after getting billions of dollars in COVID related aid and funding.”
