‘Groping’ allegation met with ‘weasel words’
TrudeAu’s response to ACCusAtions of BAd BehAviour in 2000 mArs his feminist Cred
“I’m sorry. If I had known you were reporting for a national paper, I never would have been so forward.”
The words above were attributed to Justin Trudeau in an August 2000 Creston Valley Advance editorial.
For what was the future prime minister “sorry”? The words sprang from what the Advance characterized as the “groping ” of its reporter by Trudeau during his visit to the region’s Kokanee Summit.
“Groping ”? Why, yes sir. As the editorial puts it: “Didn’t (Trudeau) learn, through his vast experiences in public life that groping a strange young woman isn’t in the handbook of proper etiquette …”
Jarring, isn’t it? “Groping ” certainly doesn’t sound like the Justin Trudeau we’ve come to know in the wake of his becoming prime minister, i.e. he of the gender-balanced cabinet, feminist foreign policy and first-ever “gender equality” budget.
But, hey, we were all young once. Let he whose actions have not prompted an editorial alleging groping cast the first stone. (Picks up stone ...)
OK, it was a long time ago. And the allegation appeared in a dinky local paper. But what does the feminist prime minister have to say about it now? We don’t know. To date, no reporter has seemingly asked Trudeau directly. The best we have is a statement from his office:
“(The prime minister) remembers being in Creston for the Avalanche Foundation but doesn’t think he had any negative interactions there.”
Yikes. I’ve written enough statements to know this exquisite serving of fudge from Trudeau’s office was crafted with lawyerly precision. “Doesn’t think” and “negative interactions” aren’t the confident words of a feminist hero. They’re weasel words meant to dull a story into going away.
“Doesn’t think”? Can one forget an incident that prompts a personal apology and a newspaper editorial? And what, exactly, is a “negative interaction”? Would an incident of “groping ” that prompts a personal apology and an editorial in a newspaper qualify?
Fine, it’s just ancient vapour being peddled by political opponents. But The National Post
— on whose behalf the young female journalist was working in Creston in 2000 — has now added some in-depth reporting to nail down more facts.
To summarize, the reporter depicted in the editorial told her paper’s then-editor (Brian Bell) and then-publisher ( Valerie Bourne) what transpired between her and Trudeau. In the words of Bourne: “She came to me just because she was distressed.” For his part, Bell says, he believed the incident happened and remembers being told about it at the time: “I consider (her) to be of sound character and that she would not have made this up.”
An editorial quoting an apology from Trudeau. Two contemporaneous accounts from the reporter’s superiors verifying both the editorial’s contents and the reporter’s character. And yet, five days later there are few visible signs of followup in the press.
It could be that newsrooms are in stealth mode, busy confirming more facts. Or perhaps it’s being written off as old news, even if it contradicts, as it so clearly does, every fibre of the prime minister’s post-2015 being, along with reams of his public statements in the wake of the #MeToo movement.
The Prime Minister’s Office is clearly worried. To wit, the PMO declined to say whether it or representatives of the Liberal Party had ever communicated with the reporter following the Kokanee Summit. That’s almost certainly a “yes.” And when presented with Bourne and Bell’s comments, the PMO didn’t change a single word from their original statement. In other words, Trudeau’s fuzzy “doesn’t think” trumps their recollections and, more problematically for Trudeau, the original account of the reporter. That’s right, the prime minister’s “doesn’t think” means he doesn’t believe the accuser, despite saying that women who come forward (as happened in the year 2000, in this case) with complaints of sexual miscon- duct must be supported and believed.
Even without Trudeau’s version of events — or forcing a reticent party to come on the record — there is enough evidence to hold Trudeau to his own standards. After all, the prime minister kicked Kent Hehr out of Cabinet for (among other things) telling an Alberta public servant she was “yummy.” Does anyone doubt Trudeau would now find the nearest yard arm for a colleague who prompted an editorial similar to his own?
There can’t be one standard for Trudeau and another for everyone else. Not on this question, not when the Prime Minister is the poster child for global feminism. We can’t have a doas-I-say-not-as-I-allegedly-do “feminist” prime minister.
Does Trudeau deny anything untoward happened in Creston? Does he deny offering an apology in 2000? If not, for what was he apologizing? Does Trudeau doubt the publisher and editor’s contemporaneous recollections? Does groping qualify as a negative interaction? I put these questions to the PMO and got the same “doesn’t think” statement back.
Just what happened on that August day 18 years ago? Was it all a misunderstanding ? If nothing happened, Trudeau should say so definitively. If something did happen, Trudeau should offer his account. And then, if he’s still sorry for his actions, Trudeau should say so and let the people decide whether his historic deeds deserve sanction.
It’s time for Trudeau to show guts, not hide behind the weasel words of his office.