— By Dede Williams — 

Practice what you preach and don’t forget what you once stood for, even when out of office and in the aura of a pop star. That’s advice a former Canadian prime minister recently had to face.

Though the world at large undoubtedly won’t recall Justin Trudeau as being an environmental firebrand during his time in office, judging by the reaction to a viral photo of the now-private citizen with his very public love interest, US pop singer Katy Perry, most Canadians well remember that his administration banned single-use plastics.

After a first airing on Perry’s Instagram channel, a photo of the couple at the popular Coachella Valley Music Festival munching noodles kerbside from a plastic package and sipping an unknown beverage from a red plastic cup elicited social media scorn at least as intense as Trudeau’s once-frequent dressing-downs by US President Donald Trump.

While the hip crowd was more unimpressed by the ex-PM’s turned-around baseball cap and his goofy look, many ordinary Canadians were upset by his apparent turnaround on throwaway plastics. The 2019 Single-use Plastics Prohibition Regulations passed under his aegis prohibited the manufacturing and distribution of most disposable foodware.

“Justin Trudeau 2019: I’m banning Canadians from using single-use plastics! Justin Trudeau 2026: Look at me smash booze from a Solo cup at Coachella,” one disillusioned commentator wrote.

Some reactions joked, however, that the photo was surely less blasphemous than Trump’s recent AI depiction of himself as Jesus.

Social media scorn fades, but a US commentator mused that California’s tough-on-plastics attorney general Rob Bonta might do well to keep his distance from Coachella, bring his own cup, or at least watch his words.

Bonta is facing a weightier opponent, a defamation lawsuit from ExxonMobil after claiming that the company’s recycling plans were “not based on truth”.