Paul Martin is touring Northern Africa and meeting “a lot of leaders”… and… yes, is actually on Christmas vacation.

Yahoo News has more:

**But his staff threw into doubt whether there would be more work than play during the tour. “We’re discussing a courtesy call with the king and prime minister of Morocco, but nothing is firm,” said Melanie Gruer, Martin’s deputy communications director.

She could not say what other leaders Martin was referring to, but said he would be doing a lot of reading of official documents.**

Ha, sounds like a familiar excuse! Kinda like how some lawyers will mock a client at lunch and bill the account for the hour… or how some graduate students will take a day off for ahem “reading” (sleeping).

Have a Merry Christmas Mr. Prime Minister! Everybody deserves some time off. At least you vacation under the guise of work rather than under a cloak of secrecy as Jean Chrétien was known to do:

Jean Chretien’s staff jealously guarded Chretien’s holiday plans and never revealed them, though it was generally known he spent most of his winter vacations in Florida