EDITORIAL: Don't go there, prime minister

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In a classic case of pot meets kettle, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau on Tuesday criticized the Montreal Canadiens for a lack of judgment in signing 18-year-old Logan Mailloux in the NHL draft.

This despite Mailloux’s conviction by a Swedish court last year for sexual misconduct.

Trudeau said, as a lifelong Habs fan, he was “deeply disappointed” by general manager Marc Bergevin’s decision.

This after Mailloux was fined US $1,650 for circulating a photo to teammates of himself engaged in a sexual act with a woman, without her consent.

There are valid reasons to criticize Bergevin’s move.

Mailloux himself said he didn’t want to be drafted by any NHL team this year because of what he had done.

But for Trudeau to imagine he’s qualified to lead the moral charge on this is absurd.

When Mailloux took the photo, he was 17 years old.

In 2018, Trudeau was accused in the “Kokanee Grope” controversy of groping a woman at a music festival in B.C. in 2000 — when he was a 28-year-old high school teacher.

A former journalist who anonymously wrote about her interaction with Trudeau at the time in a newspaper, confirmed the allegation after her article became widely known in 2018.

“I was the reporter who was the subject of the … editorial published in the Creston Valley Advance in August of 2000,” she said in a written statement: “The incident referred to in the editorial did occur, as reported.”

She said Trudeau apologized the next day, saying he wouldn’t have been “so forward” if he’d known she was reporting for a national newspaper.

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Trudeau’s response was a word salad of mixed messages, especially for someone describing himself as a feminist who believes allegations of sexual misconduct should always be taken seriously.

While he apologized, he also said he didn’t recall any “negative interactions” at the festival and didn’t believe he had done anything wrong.

Then he conceded — in a phrase that has been widely mocked ever since — that the woman might have experienced it differently and that it was a teaching moment for everyone.

Trudeau, unlike Mailloux, wasn’t charged or convicted of an offence.

But that he would imagine himself a moral authority on the Canadiens’ decision about Mailloux is laughable.