Ontario official called back from St Barts pandemic vacation

TORONTO (AP) — In a video posted on Twitter on Christmas Eve, the finance minister of Canada’s most populous province was shown sitting by a fireplace in a sweater with a gingerbread house and a little Christmas tree, drinking eggnog.

“I want to thank every one of you for what we are doing to protect our most vulnerable,” Rod Phillips said about Ontarians staying home and avoiding nonessential travel because of the pandemic over the Christmas holidays.

But Phillips himself had been enjoying a Caribbean vacation since Dec. 13 on the French island of St. Barts, a popular spot for the rich and famous. even as his Twitter account had suggested he was in snowbound Ontario.

Now that word of his whereabouts has broken in public, he's been summoned back home by Premier Doug Ford, who promised a “very tough conversation” with Phillips. Oppositions parties and the health officials are calling for Phillips to be fired from Cabinet.

Phillips arrived at Pearson International Airport in Toronto on Thursday and spoke to waiting reporters before starting a mandatory 14-day quarantine.

“It was a dumb dumb mistake,” Phillips said. "Later on today I'll be speaking to Premier Ford. I know that people are understandably angry about the situation. I do hope to be able to regain their confidence in the days and weeks ahead."

He said it will be up to the premier on whether he continues in Cabinet.

“I hope people appreciate that I disappointed no one more than myself,” Phillips said.

Ford claimed Phillips “never told anyone” he was leaving, but said he learned Phillips was out of the country when he called “shortly after he arrived” in the Caribbean.

“I should have said get your backside back into Ontario and I didn’t do that,” Ford said.

Ontario began a...