By Lorne Gunther - from the National Post
Announcer: So, Jack Layton, you’ve just lobbied the grocery chain Loblaws on behalf of members of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (RWDSU) against shuttering a grocery store in Sudbury, Ont. What are you going to do next?
Layton: I’m going to Disney World, at the union’s expense!
Okay, so that exchange didn’t really happen between an unseen announcer and the leader of the NDP — a la the promotional exchanges done each year after the Super Bowl with the game’s MVP (who receives a free trip to the Disney resort of his choice). But it could have.
According to a fascinating Canadian Press story this morning, last year, not long after Mr. Layton petitioned Loblaws to keep a store open in the northern Ontario community of Sudbury – a store that employed RWDSU members — the union flew him and his wife, NDP MP Olivia Chow — to Orlando and put them up at the fabulous Walt Disney World Swan and Dolphin resort.
To be fair, the union only forked over around $3,000 to cover the Layton-Chows’ airfare, hotel rooms (they stayed in separate rooms) and expenses. The couple were only in Florida overnight. In return for the trip, Mr. Layton had to address the union’s annual international convention, and there is no record of the Layton-Chows buying mouse-ear hats or riding the Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster to the blastin’ tunes of Aerosmith.
Still, to gauge just how hypocritical Mr. Layton’s union-paid Florida trip was, try imagining the reaction if Stephen Harper had accepted a similar trip underwritten by one or more of the companies that operate oilsands plants.
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