New Canadian PM Justin Trudeau has wasted no time in clearly positioning himself as pro-city and pro-Transit with the release a series of shots of him using the Montréal Metro on election night.

TRUDEAU TRANSIT

First Turnbull now Trudeau. Transit is obviously seen by these new leaders as a marker for broader policy; climate change, energy, infrastructure, and, no doubt, their accessibility to the people they represent. Only travelling in big-arsed fossil fuelled BMWs looks decidedly dated in this context.

We look forward to real policy and budgetary change consistent with these images to be clear this isn’t just PR, and we also look forward to our politicians catching up with this trend, and in a real way: Key, Bridges; your move….?

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35 comments

    1. You do realise that it’s possible for people to be fluent in more than one language? I know that’s a very hard concept to understand in monolingual narrow minded NZ, but it is the case.

    2. You realised that Canada has English and French as their national language and it is well accepted and enforced (not like NZ) especially in Quebec.
      So it should not be a surprise that he can speak both English and French.
      Finally, you should also know that Quebec is a proud French speaking province of Canada… and that the tweet he sent was related to the public transport in Montreal (the Capital of Quebec)…

      Please do you research before posting narrow minded comments

      1. As I said people should know when they are conquered “In 2009, a number of activities were proposed to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the Battle of the Plains of Abraham. A plan to hold a reenactment of the battle itself (as well as a reenactment of the subsequent French victory of 1760 at the Battle of Sainte-Foy) was cancelled due to threats of public disorder.” Wikipedia. Check out the real hero of Quebec https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Death_of_General_Wolfe#/media/File:Benjamin_West_005.jpg

        1. I thought it was funny too. Tell me, as a Canadian, are you wondering if he will stick around as a long serving PM like his dad or run off with the Rolling Stones like his mum?

    3. Two things, mfwic. Trudeau is of French extraction from a French-speaking province. You can readily see it in the name. Second, “people should know when they are conquered” is the cry of the conqueror. What if the people refuse to acknowledge it?

  1. Norm Kirk use to catch buses sometimes. I used to regularly see Trevor Young, Eastern Hutt MP on the train on his way to Wellington.

  2. I’ve always assumed that John Key was one of those weirdos that drove in London even though it was much quicker and easier to take the tube.

  3. Len Brown caught the train once from Papatoetoe to town. But it was just a publicity stunt as his driver collected him from home first and then drove into town on the motorway.

    1. He’s been on the train on numerous occasions.

      Even the motorway obsessed John Banks who spent hundreds of thousand getting the mayoral carpark expanded to fit his bentleys has been seen using transit in Auckland these days. Joyce, Brownlee and Key of course still refuse to give up their half million dollar BMW limousines – making them look very out of touch and dated.

    1. I used to see Nandoor Tancsos on his skateboard on his way to Parliament, dreadlocks flying…. Not Public Transport, but very eco-friendly…

    2. It’s his last day in Parliament today. He’d frequently walk to work with some podcast or interview playing in his ears. I’d wave as he went down Cuba St.

  4. Justin Trudeau lives in an inner city electorate in Montreal. It is a very dense part of the city developed long before the motor car. This part of Montreal has an excellent subway system, so it would probably be the mode of choice even for people with a car available. But it takes a special person to forsake a chauffer-driven car for the subway…but great for social media.

    1. Not sure what your point is here? He has chosen to live somewhere with good transit access and because of this you are criticising him because in your view he’s only riding transit because he has no choice?….

  5. We got free tickets to the Neil Diamond Concert at short notice for last night and decided to take the train to town. My big mistake for not looking at the last train time just thought 10.15 pm would be early. About 10,000 attendance I believe at Vector Arena.
    Concert finished a little later than expected at 10.30 pm which coincided with the last train.Lots of people going to Britomart only to be turned away.

    No, trains are not a viable answer if you want to stay out past 10.30pm on a weekday in Auckland.

    AT What are you thinking when events are on at Vector Arena ? Can you not put on a few extra rail services later on these nights.

    1. They should have built a platform for the arena. The line goes right past it!
      It could have been an event-only stop. Missed opportunity, that.

      1. They could still do that if they wanted to…. Event only PT is a good idea. All the events at Earls Court and Olympia in London – never heard of anyone driving to any of them – the whole city just jumps on the tube.

        1. Although even better would be regular services that run late enough with double length trains when there’s an event at Vector, and additional services if it’s a big one.

  6. Excellent to see a PM of a first world country much richer than New Zealand take public transport. Meanwhile, our dear leader rocks up to election night shindigs surrounded by a platoon of secret service agents after hopping out of limousine from his plush gated castle in Parnell.

  7. Meanwhile back at the ranch. . .
    Morning Report today did a spot on Transmission Gully, work being officially declared started by Simon Bridges. The motorway is due for completion in 2020.

    What sort of government do we have, that brazenly prioritises a LOW VALUE project like this over a high-value one like Auckland’s CRL (not due to even START until 2020, as far as Govt is concerned)?

    What sort of voter-base do we have, that installs such a government and lets them get away with this idiocy?

  8. A friend of mine is the governor of a Swiss canton, a position analogous with the premier of, say South Australia. His family doesn’t own a car. He walks to the office and although he can use a government car to travel around the canton he finds it more convenient to travel by train. This is totally unremarkable in Europe.

  9. Pretty funny that there are sniggery comments about the French considering none of you lot seem to understand a word of it; that tweeter clearly says he was greeting commuters in the morning. Not taking the subway on election night. He popped in the morning after for a photo op. And he lives in Montreal because he grew up there. His father was francophone and he is perfectly bilingual. The tweet was aimed at a francophone audience. Good lord.

  10. For the record (and the unfortunately monolingual) that tweet reads “A pleasure this morning to thank Montrealers. I will be proud to represent Papineau [his riding] as PM.”

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