First, there was carpooling.
Now, with the COVID-19 pandemic, there’s plane-pooling.
Last weekend, members of three Canadian political parties hopped on a government jet to travel to Ottawa to pass emergency economic legislation.
On Thursday evening, former Green Party leader Elizabeth May received a call from the Prime Minister’s Office saying a plane could pick her up in Victoria and fly her to Ottawa. “I practically wept with relief,” May said Monday, back on Vancouver Island. “The trepidation I felt about the various flights I would have to take to get to work was a fairly significant level of worry.”
May, who returned home when the House of Commons stopped sitting in mid-March, usually flies economy back and forth to Ottawa each week, but the flights she takes are no longer available.
Travelling to Ottawa to debate the wage-subsidy bill would mean going through four airports — Victoria, Vancouver, Toronto and Ottawa — which terrified her.
The PMO said the Challenger was taking cabinet ministers back to Vancouver. The jet would pick up Employment Minister Carla Qualtrough in Vancouver, then fly to Victoria to get May, before heading to Regina to pick up Conservative Opposition Leader Andrew Scheer. All three would travel on to Ottawa.
An hour after the first call, the PMO called back to say Scheer had requested that his wife Jill and their five children take the same flight. May could refuse to have Jill and the children on board.
“But it was clear from my conversation with the PMO that the Scheer family was relocating to Ottawa for some time. They also had commercial tickets, so if Jill and the children couldn’t get on the flight with us, they would be in the same position that scared me, multiple airports. But it would be Jill on her own with five kids,” said May. “It would have been hard for Jill to make it through all those.”
The nine-seater jet wasn’t crowded on Friday’s flight, but it was impossible to maintain physical distancing. May wore a mask.
“I would have felt safer maintaining the six-foot radius,” May said.
“We were accepting we would not have social distance for us. But I think it was the right thing to do to give Jill and the kids a ride. We were all very careful and I’m sure it was all fine. I hope so.”
When Jill Scheer got on board, she told May they had been self-isolating at home, May said.
On Saturday, May stood in the House of Commons and thanked Qualtrough and Scheer for sharing the government jet with her.
She now feels awkward that some in the media are criticizing them for not physically distancing. May said she would have been exposed to far more risk in the Vancouver, Toronto and Ottawa airports. “I knew I was fortunate.”
