LILLEY: Trudeau apologizes but blackface photo proves hypocrisy
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It’s a shocking photo: Justin Trudeau wearing a turban and wearing blackface. One of his hands is placed across a woman’s chest.
“I shouldn’t have done it,” Trudeau said. “I should have known better, but I didn’t.”
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LILLEY: Trudeau apologizes but blackface photo proves hypocrisy Back to video
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It’s not a photo from a childhood Halloween party, it’s from when he was a 29 year-old teacher at Vancouver’s West Point Grey Academy. The photo appears in the 2000-01 school yearbook and went unnoticed until a story was published by Time Magazine along with confirmation from Trudeau’s campaign team that it was in fact him.
As he faced media questions on his campaign plane, Trudeau admitted that he had done this on another occasion.
“When I was in high school I dressed up at a talent show and sang Day O with make-up on,” Trudeau said.
“I’m more enthusiastic about costumes than is sometimes appropriate,” he added, with a nod to his trip to India.
Asked if he would resign as many American politicians have been forced to do for similar incidents, Trudeau danced around the issue.
“I take responsibility for my decision to do that,” he said. “It’s something that I didn’t think was racist at the time but now I recognize it was something racist to do.”
Bottom line: Trudeau isn’t resigning over this even though he would demand that any other party fire any candidate caught in the same situation. Asked what taking responsibility means for him given that others would be fired over this, Trudeau said it means it’s time for “important conversations.”
He said he didn’t know it was racist to appear in black face in 2001 but does now. I’m pretty sure I had this figured out by 2001 and Trudeau and I are the same age.
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh, a man who has faced a tough political road because he does wear a turban on a daily basis, learned of the photo as he held a town hall north of Toronto. Singh said that Trudeau’s actions are insulting.
“We see one Mr. Trudeau in public and I’ll be honest with you, he seems really nice, very friendly, very warm in public, but behind closed doors he seems like he’s a different Mr. Trudeau,” Singh said.
Singh said he’s dealt with racism his whole life and that includes feelings that this sort of thing is OK, or was OK. Let’s be honest, if any other candidate in any other party was found to have a photo like this, they would have been fired, dropped as a candidate and pushed out of politics.
According to Time, the magazine received the photo earlier this month and sought to confirm its authenticity. They reached out to several people who attended the event and while none would speak on the record, the yearbook shows Trudeau as the only person in black face.
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The photo was denounced by the National Council of Canadian Muslims.
“Seeing the prime minister in brownface/blackface is deeply saddening,” said NCCM’s executive director Mustafa Farooq, “The wearing of blackface/brownface is reprehensible, and hearkens back to a history of racism and an Orientalist mythology which is unacceptable.”
Farooq is calling for an apology. Will that be enough?
Justin Trudeau rubbed elbows with Kevin Spacey and Bono at the World Economic Forum's annual summit in Davos, Switzerland, in 2016. Hollywood blackballed Spacey after a series of sexual misconduct allegations against him -- starting in October, 2017 -- caused an international scandal. Spacey was charged with sexual assault in 2018, but the charge was ultimately dropped in July, 2019. Photo by Twitter
Justin Trudeau wraps his arm around 2016 Order of Canada recipient Peter Dalglish. In mid-2019, Dalglish was found guilty of sexually assaulting children in Nepal. He was sentenced to nine years in a Nepalese prison. Dalglish denies any wrongdoing and after the conviction, his attorney told the CBC, "We turn our attention to the appeal process in Nepal's appellate courts."Photo by Twitter
Justin Trudeau and Amin El-Maoued are pictured on a stage together in June, 2018. El-Maoued was accused of being an anti-Semite for his role in a 2017 rally he allegedly led where anti-Semitic chants such as "Hitler and Israel are the same thing" and other anti-Semitic views were expressed. El-Maoued received a community service award -- presented to him on behalf of Trudeau -- but had it taken away following backlash from the Jewish community. El-Maoued wrote in a Facebook post he "condemned anti-Semitism" as well as some of the "statements" made at the rally. Photo by Facebook
Justin Trudeau met with members of the Boyle family on Parliament Hill in Ottawa in late 2017. Boyle and his family were held in captivity in Afghanistan for five years. Boyle was charged in January, 2018 and is currently on trial. He has pleaded not guilty to all 19 charges, including sexually assaulting and forcibly confining his wife.Photo by Twitter
Justin Trudeau hugs Cuba's Fidel Castro in October, 2000. Trudeau has been criticized for his praise of the now-dead communist dictator. After his death in late 2016, Trudeau lauded Castro as a "remarkable leader" who was "larger than life leader who served his people for almost half a century." Photo by Montreal Gazzette/Pierre Obendrauf
Justin Trudeau was interviewed by Jian Ghomeshi on the disgraced broadcaster's CBC Radio One show Q in 2014. No longer with the CBC, Ghomeshi landed in the centre of a sexual harassment and assault trial in 2014 and 2015. In his first trial, Ghomeshi pleaded not guilty and was acquitted of all charges. He avoided a second trial after he signed a peace bond which led the Crown to withdraw the remaining charge against him.Photo by Youtube
Justin Trudeau is pictured with Aga Khan. Trudeau was found to have violated ethics rule's in 2017 after he accepted a trip to Khan's island in the Bahamas. Trudeau did not advise the conflict of interest commissioner of his friendship with Khan and admitted to using Khan's personal helicopter.Photo by Twitter
Justin Trudeau's wife, Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, posed for a photo with Jaspal Atwal in February, 2018.Photo by Postmedia
Justin Trudeau posed for a group photo featuring Jaspal Atwal (right) in May, 2015. Atwal, a Surrey businessman, was a one-time member of the now-banned International Sikh Youth Federation. He has been convicted of attempted murder for his role in a 1986 terror-related shooting in B.C. During Trudeau's now infamous India trip, Atwal was invited to dinner with the prime minister by Canada's High Commission in Delhi in an apparent failure to vet the guest list. Photo by Postmedia
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Hardcore supporters of Trudeau will obviously say yes, there will always be partisans who will forgive or overlook any mistake no matter how large.
Since the campaign began, the Liberals have called for various Conservative candidates to be fired based on social media posts or past associations. The Liberal war room has bragged that they have much more to come on Conservatives.
On Wednesday night that part of the campaign was effectively shut down after Trudeau absolved himself for appearing in blackface as an adult.
Trudeau also showed that once again, he’s a hypocrite.
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