Thursday, September 22, 2011

Con-Air

Right in line with Airshow's private use of a RCAF Cormorant search and rescue helicopter for his fishing trip, Harper turns out to be one of the few international leaders exclusively using publicly owned aircraft for travel.

The British Prime Minister, surely someone with much more serious security concerns than Harper, is using commercial flights to fly internationally. Indeed, according the CBC, so do the heads of many governments and countries.

Given that the air staff were completely willing to re-task a key SAR asset to pick up the defence minister on holiday, I might suggest that they change their name to Royal Conservative Air Force. You know, just to formalise their new job as purveyors of fine charter aircraft to the Conservative cabinet.

Oh the suck-ulence. Helicopter to plane, Salmon to Airshow to Lobster MacKay. He really is a Domestic Man of Mystery.

4 comments:

Steve said...

I wonder if Harpo has his crosshairs on Airshow?

Jim said...

From the CBC survey, it appears that heads of state often use government planes; heads of government use commercial. Except in Canada.

I also loved the comment in the Globe article that Britain had been Canada's "colonial master" for "several centuries." 1759 to 1867 is 108 years. This is not "several centuries."

Tip for reporters: Don't write about it if you don't know anything about it.

Mark, Ottawa said...

But PM Cameron arrived Sept. 22 in Ottawa from New York on an RCAF Challenger --is that a scandal too?

Mark
Ottawa

Boris said...

Mark,
Only if, as seems to be the case, it is outside the norm for visiting heads of government to arrive on the Canadian taxpayer's time. Is the UK government covering the cost of the flight?