OTTAWA – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau isn’t letting the COVID-19 pandemic stop his standard act of venturing out to different districts of the nation throughout the late spring – he’s simply doing it essentially this year.
He’ll spend quite a bit of today in gatherings with British Columbia political, business, natural and scholastic pioneers, all from the solace of his office in Ottawa.
Furthermore, he’ll do another comparable virtual tour of the Atlantic provinces on Thursday.
The summer is normally an open door for the prime minister and other federal political leaders to travel broadly and participate in outreach with community leaders and voters outside the Ottawa bubble.
Trudeau conducts virtual regional outreach as pandemic shuts down travel Ottawa – Prime Minister Justin Trudeau isn’t letting the COVID-19 pandemic stop his standard act of venturing out to different districts of the nation throughout the late spring – he’s simply doing it essentially this year. He’ll spend quite a bit of today in gatherings with British Columbia political, business, natural and scholastic pioneers, all from the solace of his office in Ottawa. Furthermore, he’ll do another comparable virtual tour of the Atlantic provinces on Thursday.
The summer is normally an open door for the prime minister and other federal political leaders to travel broadly and participate in outreach with community leaders and voters outside the Ottawa bubble. In addition to other things, Trudeau typically gathers a cabinet retreat and goes to a Liberal council retreat outside the country’s capital every prior year parliament resumes in the fall. He, his clergymen and Liberal MPs utilize those occasions to fan out into the host communities, listening to local concerns, making some announcements and generally promoting the government’s message.
But the need to curb the spread of COVID-19 has put the kibosh on much of that in-person travel this year. Apart from the occasional trip to Toronto, Montreal and communities near Ottawa, Trudeau has been forced to stay home — and find other ways to conduct regional outreach.
Newly minted Conservative Leader Erin O’Toole was similarly forced to figure out other ways to woo supporters across the country during his party’s months-long leadership contest.
What political leaders have learned about pandemic-era campaigning and outreach could be useful should Trudeau’s minority government be defeated on the throne speech he intends to unveil on Sept. 23, detailing what he has promised will be a bold plan for economic recovery.
Trudeau’s virtual tours of B.C. and the Atlantic provinces are at least in part devoted to consultations on that recovery plan.
In addition to a virtual meeting today with B.C. Premier John Horgan, Trudeau is scheduled to hold a roundtable with the province’s business and environmental leaders on the measures needed to ensure a green, sustainable economic recovery.
Participants in the roundtable are to include Merran Smith, executive director of Clean Energy Canada; Greg D’Avignon, president of the B.C. Business Council; Carol Anne Hilton, founder and CEO of the Indigenomics Institute; Darcy Dobell, chair of Ocean Networks Canada; Christine Bergeron, interim president and CEO of Vancity; Mark Jaccard, a sustainable energy professor at Simon Fraser University; and Kevin Desmond, CEO of TransLink.
Trudeau is also scheduled to meet virtually with the University of British Columbia faculty members and private sector partners who’ve been working on federally funded projects to help support to transition back to work and innovative production of personal protective equipment.
Photo credit: CTV
News source: The Canadian Press
