Canada: Will blackface scandal cost Trudeau the election?
Canada’s “progressive prince might actually be a frog,” said Brad Hunter in Independent . co.uk. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau rode into office in 2015 “on a platform of politically correct platitudes that made him the darling of the Left. Plus he had those dreamy looks.” Trudeau called out sexism, racism, and homophobia wherever he saw it, and doled out official apologies to everyone Canada had treated poorly since its 1867 founding, including indigenous peoples, Jews, and Sikhs. But “if you live by political correctness, you can die by it as well.” With Trudeau’s Liberal Party fighting for its political life ahead of the Oct. 21 elections, Time magazine last week published a photo from 2001 that shows Trudeau in brownface at an Arabian Nights–themed costume party. At the time, he was a 29-year-old teacher at an elite Vancouver school. The next day, video footage emerged of Trudeau in blackface in the 1990s. The prime minister said he was “deeply sorry” for his behavior, explaining that while he didn’t understand at the time that his costume was racist, he does now. Oh, and he also admitted that he’d put on blackface on a third occasion, in high school, to sing Harry Belafonte’s “Day-O” at a talent show.
This hypocrite doesn’t deserve our forgiveness, said Christie Blatchford in the National Post (Canada). The Liberal leader has always been “quick to judge others,” condemning them “with that rich Trudeau smarminess.” He kicked two lawmakers out of his party in 2015 based only on uncorroborated accusations of sexual harassment. Yet for his own behavior, Trudeau makes excuses, saying he is “more enthusiastic about costumes than is sometimes appropriate.” And he still enjoys playacting as a brown person—just without the makeup, said Richard Martineau in Le Journal de Montréal (Canada). Last year, Trudeau dressed himself and his whole family in Indian garb for a photo op in front of the Taj Mahal, “their eyes closed, their hands folded” in prayer. “As if they were Hindus!”
The scandal undermines Trudeau’s campaign strategy, said Paul Wells in Macleans (Canada). The prime minister can offer only a “listless and uninteresting argument about good governance.” So Liberals have gone negative, digging up whatever dirt they can on opposition Conservative lawmakers. They have crowed about a Conservative who once posted something homophobic on Facebook, for example, and have tried to tie Conservative leader Andrew Scheer to white supremacists. The thesis is that “these are bad people” who “don’t deserve your vote.” Yet now Trudeau says politicians can’t be expected to demonstrate that they’ve “been perfect every step of their lives.”
Trudeau has shown “a lamentable lack of judgment,” said the Toronto Star (Canada) in an editorial. But is he a racist? Most Canadians don’t think so. His government has done much to support diversity, appointing members of minorities to the cabinet, funding anti-racism measures, and setting generous immigration quotas. Next month, voters will decide “whether Trudeau is a lost cause or a flawed individual with the potential to do better.”