Links - 22nd December 2019 (1) (Justin Trudeau)

Justin Trudeau on #MeToo: "I’ve Been Very, Very Careful all my Life" - "Amid a spate of resignations by Canadian politicians prompted by allegations of sexual harassment and assault, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau spoke to the CBC about his zero-tolerance approach to sexual misconduct.When asked by the reporter, “As you look back into your own career, is there a chance at some point that your actions might not have been construed the way they were intended?” Trudeau responded:“I don’t think so. I’ve been very, very careful all my life to be thoughtful, to be respectful of people’s space and people’s headspace as well.”Despite this statement of confidence in his own actions, Trudeau said he is subject to the same zero-tolerance policy he applies to everyone else." “The standard applies to everyone,” he said. “There is no context in which someone doesn’t have responsibility for things they’ve done in the past"... In 2014, Liberal MPs Massimo Pacetti and Scott Andrews were suspended by Trudeau after two female New Democrat MPs levelled complaints against them, and eventually the pair voluntarily resigned from the Liberal caucus permanently... “It’s essential to start from a place of belief and support for anyone coming forward with stories or allegations of harassment or assault. This in itself represents a significant change in society,” he said. “We obviously need a process that flows from there and that’s something we’re all working very, very hard on ensuring it gets done right. But the first instinct and the first place to be needs to be believing and supporting.”... Warren Kinsella, a lawyer and political commentator, also predicted more allegations would be revealed to the public. “There are other men who are about to be exposed,” he wrote on his blog. “One of these men is very, very powerful. The stories have been known about him for three years. They are in affidavits, plural. His name will shock you.”On Tuesday, Trudeau said he did not know who that person might be."
Some people claimed that Trudeau wasn't a hypocrite about the blackface scandal. But this was a few months before own his sexual assault scandal broke. And of course he didn't resign. Plus the principle, in his own words, is clear

The Rise and (Possible) Fall of Justin Trudeau Show the Perils of Woke Governance - "All governments eventually become enmeshed in some kind of scandal, of course. But Justin Trudeau’s Liberals are unlike their predecessors in one crucial respect: They have created the first national government anywhere that has explicitly presented itself as a political vessel of ultra-progressive social-justice mantras such as intersectionality and #MeToo. And there is evidence to suggest that this scandal has been all the more damaging to the Liberals precisely because their grubby treatment of a principled Indigenous woman is so obviously at odds with the pious social-justice posturing that, until just a few weeks ago, often made the Liberals sound more like an activist organization or undergraduate student society than a G7 government. Trudeau’s woke identity is something he brought into office from day one. He banned anyone with pro-life views from his caucus, then tried to force recipients of a Canadian summer-jobs fund (including Bible camps) to declare support for pro-choice dogma. When asked why he insisted on creating Ottawa’s first gender-balanced cabinet, Trudeau declared, “because it’s 2015”—as if to suggest that anyone who didn’t support affirmative action was a misogynist (causing feminist website Jezebel to gush that “the sexiest thing about Justin Trudeau is his cabinet’s gender parity”). Under the Trudeau government’s bill C-16, pronoun misusage could become actionable under Canadian human-rights law. His government has introduced new environmental impact assessments that require project managers to impute “the intersection of sex and gender with other identity factors” in their environmental analysis. And he has promised transgender offenders the right to be imprisoned in jails that align with their gender expression.On the question of “male toxicity,” in particular, Trudeau often has seemed like a social-justice Twitter account on two legs... taken as a whole, his government’s over-the-top embrace of the most faddish forms of social justice has come to so completely define his brand that it has turned him into a sort of caricature, and obscured his very real accomplishments on important issues such as trade. In 2018, when he publicly corrected a woman who had used the word “mankind”—“we like to say peoplekind,” the PM admonished—the country took the absurd rebuke at face value, and Trudeau was pilloried... For all his talk about #climatechange and #reconciliation, for instance, Trudeau’s government had no choice but to plow ahead with a controversial US$3.5-billion pipeline that is opposed by environmentalists and some First Nations groups—for the simple reason that most Canadian voters care far more about unfashionable concerns such as jobs and energy access than they do about climate change or Indigenous rights... it is impossible to reconcile Butts’ attempt to discredit Wilson-Raybould’s narrative wholesale without making nonsense of Trudeau’s woke 2018 claim that “when women speak up, it is our duty to listen to them and to believe them.” To reiterate: All political parties succumb to realpolitik sooner or later. What makes Trudeau different isn’t that he is less ethical than most of his prime ministerial predecessors. It’s that he ran the first government in Canadian history that not only lectured Canadians about matters of policy, but also consistently instructed them how to live and think—how they should practice feminism, raise children, use pronouns, and seek to absolve their collective sins against Indigenous peoples. The bullying of Wilson-Raybould—which is the way many Canadians have come to regard the way she was treated—isn’t just a scandal in and of itself. It also makes a retroactive mockery of all the sermons we Canadians have had to listen to over the last three years. It feels like showing up early for an appointment with a nutritionist, and catching her wolfing down a whole sleeve of Oreos. The most successful Liberal Canadian prime minister of our era was Jean Chrétien, who left office with his reputation (largely) intact, despite scandals an order of magnitude more serious than l’affaire Wilson-Raybould—including Shawinigate and Adscam. In part, that’s because when he was caught, Chrétien more or less just shrugged and said, in so many words, “yeah, you got me.” He had never pretended to be a high priest of human morality—and so while his actions seemed base, they didn’t seem altogether hypocritical... Whatever the fate of Trudeau in the wake of this scandal, progressive politicians everywhere should take heed of the larger lesson. Social-justice purists have a habit of turning on their own, because no one is capable of living up to the program of doctrinal purity that the movement prescribes. When this happens to some lapsed social-justice warrior on Twitter, it brings grief to one person. When the target is a lapsed national leader, the collateral damage can extend to an entire government"

New Video Surfaces Showing Trudeau in Blackface, Compounding Scandal - The New York Times - "“Justin Trudeau has carefully crafted an image of what Canadians aspire to: hope, openness to the world and youth,” said Jean-Marc Léger, chief executive of Léger, a leading polling company in Montreal. “The blackface episode shatters that perfect image and casts questions on his authenticity.”... a video posted by GlobalNews, a Canada-based news organization, showed the prime minister in the early 1990s dressed in blackface and an Afro wig while waving his hands and sticking out his tongue.This came after the disclosure of two photographs taken when he was 29 years old and a teacher at a school in British Columbia, showing him at an “Arabian Nights” party, costumed as Aladdin in brownface makeup and a turban. Mr. Trudeau also admitted on Wednesday to dressing up in blackface while performing “Day-O,” the Jamaican folk song, in high school... The disclosure of the images comes only a few months after Mr. Trudeau’s former justice minister and attorney general, an Indigenous woman, accused him of bullying her while pressing her to settle corruption charges against a major Quebec engineering company. When she didn’t comply, he was accused of demoting her... even before this week’s news, support for the Conservative Party, Mr. Trudeau’s principal opponent, began inching upward after Conservatives ran attack ads suggesting the prime minister was “not as advertised.”... in Canada, he is a deeply polarizing figure. Some Canadians, especially in the western parts of the country, have seen him as an elitist do-gooder who was never up to the job... He has been taken to task for seeming inconsistencies in his policies. For example, even as he proposed a national carbon tax — following through on his promises to fight climate change — he used 4.5 billion in Canadian dollars to buy an oil pipeline, which he said would be good for the Canadian economy. “Everything the prime minister does is a calculation about his image,” said Nicola Di Iorio, who recently stepped down as a Liberal member of parliament for a multicultural district in Montreal. “There are too many gimmicks.”... Mr. Trudeau maintained his popularity for much of his term, even as critics complained that his colorful socks, shirtless runs, frequent apologies for historical wrongs and bouts of tears sometimes gave the appearance of an actor playing a prime minister rather than actually being one.On a disastrous state trip to India last year, he attracted ridicule for wearing, along with his family members, flashy traditional Indian clothing, supposedly as a sign of respect for Indian culture. In Canada, which has a large immigrant community from India, he was criticized for cultural appropriation and widely mocked... In August, the federal ethics commissioner found that Mr. Trudeau broke the conflict-of-interest law. His approval rating tumbled to about 30 percent."

Red-handed in blackface: THIRD example of Justin Trudeau in ‘racist’ makeup surfaces after PM swears he only did it ‘twice’ - "Pressed about him not mentioning the third instance of blackface, Trudeau said he shared what he “recollected”... For an avowedly progressive leader who has urged Canadians to “accept” and not merely “tolerate” each other’s differences, Trudeau’s failure to avoid racial caricatures must have come as a surprise for citizens regularly lectured about their country’s liberal values."

Justin Trudeau Blackface Scandal: NBC Says He 'Darkened' Face  - "NBC News fired Megyn Kelly in 2018 after Kelly suggested that wearing a blackface costume was acceptable when it was for Halloween"

Canada's Justin Trudeau cannot say how often he wore blackface - "Canada's PM Justin Trudeau has said he cannot remember how often he wore blackface as a younger man... The images are so embarrassing for the prime minister because he has positioned himself as a champion of social justice, inclusivity and diversity... the prime minister made his second appearance before reporters since the scandal broke.He said: "Darkening your face, regardless of the context or the circumstances, is always unacceptable because of the racist history of blackface.
Almost everyone is giving him a pass though, since he's on the "right" side. Some say it's okay because he was portraying a specific character. Of course, others who darken their skins to play specific characters don't get off

Gad Saad - "Justin Trudeau is the poster child of Freudian projection. He accuses everyone else of what he is. He is a male feminist (ergo he gropes women). He is a progressive diversity champion (ergo he spends half his life in blackface). He is all about cultural relativism (ergo he grew up in the most privileged enclaves of elitist white snobbery). He is a grotesque cesspool of hypocrisy."

Brownface, Blackface and About-Face. Is Trudeau Who He Says He Is? - The New York Times - "Peter Donolo, the former director of communications for former Liberal Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, said that he hoped the upheaval would convince Mr. Trudeau to stop suggesting that his party holds a moral high ground over its rivals. “I never thought that was a good look for him,” Mr. Donolo said."

Wesley on Twitter - "The Conservative plan will give tax breaks to millionaires. I just don't think that's right. Liberals will cut taxes so middle class families get $600 and the wealthiest one percent get zero. #ChooseForward"
"@JustinTrudeau Unless it's Loblaw, Irving, Bombardier or SNC Lavalin?"

The downfall of Justin Trudeau - "With an impending federal election this autumn, Mr. Trudeau’s Liberal government has dropped to second place behind the opposition Tories. His personal popularity has crumbled to just 35 per cent... Many Canadians are starting to realise that Mr. Trudeau’s belief in “sunny ways” is leading to nothing more than dark, stormy days for the country. He is arguably one of the most unimpressive individuals to have ever become PM... Mr Trudeau is uniquely underqualified for this important role. Having trained as a drama teacher, he lacks a political or legal background. His jittery delivery when speaking in public has become a running gag. Nor is he skilled at handling changes to existing government policies, or dealing with questions from the media. His policies are equally disappointing. Mr. Trudeau believes in a nanny state, and has little to say about advancing individual rights and freedoms (beyond legalising marijuana). He has overseen the introduction of a crippling carbon tax, while ignoring the important responsibility of reducing the overall tax burden on households.Trudeau’s scatterbrained approach to foreign policy has undermined Canada’s growing role on the international stage. During the NAFTA renegotiation process, he pressed the U.S. and Mexico to include progressive concepts like “gender rights” and “Indigenous rights” in discussions of trade. He even once claimed that the budget would, magically, “balance itself” to supporting short-term deficits... Were he not the son of the late Liberal PM Pierre Trudeau, his ascent would have been completely implausible."

Golden boy no more: As an election looms, two-faced Justin Trudeau has betrayed Canada - "There is no one issue where Trudeau’s hypocrisy is laid bare more than that of the environment and climate change. One day he declares a climate emergency, the next (literally) he’s expanding oil pipelines. One day he’s marching with climate activists, nodding in agreement with Greta Thunberg and giving speeches about cutting carbon emissions – and the next, we hear he’s been using two airplanes to drag his campaign staff and equipment around the country instead of one. Look, no one would expect the PM to ride around the country campaigning on a zero-emissions bike, but surely if he wants to lead by example, one gas-guzzling jet would suffice. One tweet succinctly summed up the futility of Trudeau marching with environmental activists fairly well: “You don’t need to march bro, you’re literally the f**king guy in charge.” However, Trudeau’s environmental hypocrisy had already been well-established before the Conservative Party whipped out the travel logs and photographs of his two campaign planes. See, usually avowed environmentalists don’t tend to be in the habit of building pipelines, but green-conscious Trudeau seems to have missed the memo on that one.After promising to usher in a new era of environmentalism, Trudeau infuriated millions of Canadians when he bought the Kinder Morgan Trans Mountain pipeline for $4.5 billion on the taxpayer’s dime – and promised federal support for its expansion. Trudeau revealed his true colors in siding with corporate oil interests, despite a wave of protests from local communities, environmentalists and First Nations peoples. The pipeline, set to ride roughshod over indigenous lands, poses serious environmental risks, including to drinking water... From Ukraine to Venezuela to Iran, Ottawa plays a major supporting role to Washington, always unquestioningly supporting and amplifying US narratives.Under Trudeau, Canada deployed 200 troops to Ukraine to train soldiers and National Guard personnel to “liberate” the country, sticking carefully to the US’ anti-Russia drive in Eastern Europe and providing aid to a post-coup government that was propped up by neo-Nazis. Trudeau also enthusiastically threw his support behind Trump’s provocations and campaign of “maximum pressure” against Iran, painting Tehran as an “aggressor” and essentially endorsing any future action the White House may take... Then there’s the minor issue of Trudeau’s embroilment in a major corruption scandal. The supposed goody-two-shoes PM is alleged to have pressured Canada’s ex-attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould to abandon a bribery probe into his wealthy friends at engineering firm SNC Lavalin. The Canadian firm is accused of having bribed officials to win lucrative contracts in Libya.Wilson-Raybould, who was removed from her post as attorney general and demoted to a less important cabinet position, claims Trudeau made “veiled threats” to drop the case. She resigned when the story broke and Trudeau denied subjecting her to months of pressure. This doesn’t sound like the behavior of a man who would wear a pink anti-bullying T-shirt bearing the slogan “Kindness is One Size Fits All” now, does it?"

COMMENTARY: The silver lining of the Liberals’ convenient embrace of political forgiveness - "a Conservative candidate in Brampton had offhandedly used an anti-gay slur in a Twitter post. The post in question was from 2010, when Arpan Khanna was still a university student... to the Liberals, the apology wasn’t enough. In fact, they called it “disturbing” that the Conservatives continued to stand by their candidate. Fast-forward seven days, and suddenly the Liberals have done a 180 on forgiveness and second chances. The idea of a meaningful apology making things right has gained a staggering amount of currency in Liberal circles.After all, if the party were to hold true to the very standard it had demanded of their opponents just a week prior, it would be suddenly facing the nightmare scenario of finding a new leader a month out from election day... Perhaps some politicians are, as the saying goes, too big to fail.In an interview last year with CBC, following reports of a groping allegation against Trudeau (an allegation dating back to 2000, not long before Trudeau posed for the now-infamous photos and video), he declared that “there is no context in which someone doesn’t have responsibility for things they’ve done in the past.”... The same Justin Trudeau demanding his peers be held accountable for their actions and cast aside for past transgressions was, this whole time, hiding a closet full of his own racist transgressions... Following the Khanna controversy (and before the emergence of the Trudeau photos), Conservative leader Andrew Scheer defended his approach, saying that “as long as someone takes responsibility for what they said, and addresses the fact that in 2019 some things that may have been said in the past are inappropriate today, that if anything they’ve ever said in the past caused any type of hurt or disrespect to any one community or another and have apologized for that, I accept that. I accept the fact that people can make mistakes in the past and can own up to that and accept that.” One can judge whether Scheer himself is guilty of any hypocrisy based on his response to the Trudeau brown- and blackface controversy, but haven’t the Liberals — out of convenience and necessity — basically adopted that position as their own? And frankly, why shouldn’t that be the position that all parties hold to?"

Christie Blatchford: Trudeau cuts himself the slack he has denied to others - "He purported to be taking responsibility, but he called the brownface he wore in that shocking Time Magazine photo “makeup.”... This picture dates to 2001, when Trudeau was not a kid, but a 29-year-old... I am not someone who subscribes to the one-strike-and-you’re-out rule. I agree with what the three party leaders now say about such gaffes (racist or homophobic posts, speeches, etc.), which is that they must be judged on a case-by-case basis. In general, I believe people deserve second and sometimes 15 chances, the 15 reserved for those who do something ridiculous as teenagers and who should be cut some slack.But this is not how Trudeau has acted to the gaffes and mistakes of others.When he was informed of alleged misdeeds by two of his MPs, Massimo Pacetti and Scott Andrews, Trudeau temporarily suspended them for “serious personal misconduct.” There never was a real investigation into the complaints, rather a secret review by a lawyer. And then they were permanently expelled from the Liberal caucus.Even last week, when Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer refused to walk back comments he’d made about how “a single group of people” or one Indigenous group could “hold hostage” a pipeline that would greatly benefit many Indigenous groups, Trudeau was there to soberly shake his head in sadness and “deplore his perspective and the language he used.” He is always quick to judge others, condemn them, and always with that rich Trudeau smarminess.In other words, it’s his hypocrisy that is so galling.And there’s another issue too, is which all parties indulge in but none so regularly or so callously as the Liberals, and that’s the using of immigrant groups as diversity props. As Sukhi Sandhu, a community activist in Surrey, B.C., and a former vice-president of the B.C. chapter of the federal Liberal party, says furiously, “Immigrants have suffered from many types of institutionalized racism, while contributing to the community.” What they get in return, at least from the Liberals, he says, is exploitation and pandering... “If we want to talk about anything other than diversity and immigration,” he says, “we get nowhere."

Justin Trudeau's Met By Protesters in Blackface

Inside the charity gala where Justin Trudeau shocked 500 guests with blackface

Opinion: Why do the rules of politics not apply to Justin Trudeau? Because he’s a celebrity first - The Globe and Mail - "The closest approximation, in spirit if not politics, is the celebrity-in-chief next door. Donald Trump, the former reality-TV star, summed up his imperviousness thusly: “I could stand in the middle of Fifth Avenue and shoot somebody, and I wouldn’t lose any votes.” Mr. Trudeau may not be explicitly articulating this, but he is exemplifying it."

Opinion | The Downfall of Canada’s Dreamy Boyfriend - The New York Times - "These stories, though, rarely made a stir in the United States. Occasionally, I’d see articles alluding to Mr. Trudeau’s troubles. Recently, Hasan Minhaj’s Netflix series “Patriot Act” featured an episode with Mr. Trudeau, in which he uncomfortably answers questions about the gap between his image and his policies. But overall, the American story of Mr. Trudeau as a “dream politician for the left,” as Mr. Minhaj put it, stuck. Until now, that is... Sorry, Americans. As Canadians living in the United States, we tried to tell you: That dude you thought was your dreamy boyfriend? He’s not all he’s cracked up to be"

Trudeau’s Progressive Style - The Atlantic - "Canadian progressives, like progressives all over the world, must decide whether they care more about the pursuit of social and cultural change, through the eradication of racist and sexist imagery, or the pursuit of transformative policies... Whatever Canadians may think about the photograph itself, it closes off a major line of attack for Trudeau. Live by the sword of political correctness, die by the sword of political correctness. You can’t argue that your opponents are a bunch of embarrassing antiquities living in the political past—by, say, replaying the Conservative leader’s 2005 speech opposing gay marriage, which the Liberals were doing right up until this story broke—when the internet is rife with your face in brown makeup. The Trudeau scandal points to a larger problem: The woke will always break your heart. It’s not just that nobody’s perfect, and it’s not just that times change, and it’s not even that the instinct to punish that defines so much of the left is inherently self-defeating. If people want to sell you morality, of any kind, they always have something to hide."
In other words, if you're a liberal you get a pass and benefit from double standards because it is politically expedient

Trudeau government does not care about racism or progressive politics - The Post Millennial - "Reconciliation with indigenous peoples? In theory, sure. But the government will still take children to court because $40,000 in compensation for a lifetime of abuse is, perhaps, “asking for more than we are able to give right now.”It seems to the Trudeau government that it’s not just veterans who ask for too much, but also the children of Indigenous families who have had their rights violated. Of course, that is just the beginning.  Team Trudeau, while actively campaigning on the importance of ending gender inequality by bringing strong women into politics, attacked and removed Jody Wilson-Raybould and Jane Philpott for calling out the government’s breaking of ethics laws with the damning SNC-Lavalin scandal.  I suppose a lack of ethics to the benefit of powerful corporations is only problematic when others do it. Sadly, once again, this is still only the beginning.  Even when it comes to racist actions, the Liberals judge themselves, and most importantly Trudeau by a different standard.  If someone performs a racist action in the past, they need to resign… unless that person’s name is Justin Trudeau, and they wore blackface more times than they can count. Then an apology is fine, and the decades of racist action no longer matter...  the Liberal government’s bureaucracy actively went after Manjot Bains, a senior program adviser in Community Support, Multiculturalism and Anti-Racism Initiatives in Canadian Heritage for daring critique the PMs racist decision to put on blackface “when he was a high school student when he worked for a whitewater rafting company, and when he was a teacher at a Vancouver private school gala.”  The federal government seems dedicated to pretending rather than actually solving problems, and when caught, its everyone’s fault but theirs... While Trudeau maintains the Conservative party’s environmental goals and likely fails to achieve them, he also takes vacations on private islands, uses two planes during campaigns, and allows the largest polluters to have exemptions from the Carbon tax.   In effect he expects working-class Canadians to just adapt, once again creating a system, where the elite continues to enjoy their luxuries while those without, are forced to make hard cuts for the long-term well being of the nation.   This certainly doesn’t sound like the actions taken by a government that believes the UN report which states there are only 12 years to limit climate change catastrophe. Instead, it seems like the actions taken by a government with lukewarm beliefs, aiming to win votes at all costs"

Trudeau will censor your social media if reelected - The Post Millennial - "It has been noted by many experts that Trudeau’s plans for censoring social media are dangerous and Orwellian. Parliament had previously repealed Section 13 of the Canadian Human Rights Act that had banned posts on the internet that were considered to spread “hatred or contempt.” Trudeau and the Liberals have been exploring reinstating that section... Facebook censored a Toronto Sun opinion piece, deeming it fake news. In the past, Trudeau and his ministers have had private meetings with top Facebook execs asking them to censor content the Liberals find problematic. Trudeau also announced his party was planning to implement a Digital Charter in May of 2019"