By now it should be clear there is something wrong with Justin Trudeau. We are not unfamiliar with the public figure who, at some point in his past, did something remarkably stupid or offensive like black up his face for a party. We have no experience with a leader, a prime minister no less, who […]

There’s probably nothing in the Canadian political strategy textbooks about how to pivot away from blackface. Justin Trudeau and his campaign are trying, though, as they must. He addressed the photos and video that emerged this week at length Thursday afternoon. What was supposed to be a Liberal rally on Thursday night was turned into […]

Roughly ten years ago, I had lunch with then-backbench MP Justin Trudeau to pitch him on a warts-and-all biography. The way I figured it, he was five years away from being Liberal leader and eight from being prime minister so a book could introduce him to voters without sugarcoating. He listened politely before shrugging off […]

The year was 2017. Our future ambassador to China, Dominic Barton, had just released his report to Finance Minister Bill Morneau’s Advisory Council on Economic Growth citing Canada’s agriculture sector as one which held tremendous growth potential. In turn, the federal budget set an ambitious target to grow Canada’s agri-food exports from $55 billion in […]

Would anyone be surprised if new footage emerges of Justin Trudeau dressed in brownface and faking an Indian accent — “Hull-oohh!” — while sprinting through the frame and pulling a rickshaw full of naan and kebobs? Nope. No Canadian would be surprised. Not after this week. What are we up to now? Three? Four? One […]

Justin Trudeau has embraced the idea that the government of Canada should acknowledge and apologize for its wrongs. As prime minister, he has officially dealt with some of the most shameful moments in the nation’s collective past: the turning away of the Komagata Maru in 1914, the treatment of children in residential schools in Newfoundland […]

The reaction on the streets of Saint-Hyacinthe to Justin Trudeau’s recurring tendency of blacking up for his own amusement was subdued. It seems we do not expect much of our politicians, so we are rarely disappointed. There were expressions of exasperation about the mud-slinging that has characterized this campaign. By and large, though, an unscientific […]

It is almost too obvious now to point out the rank hypocrisy of the Trudeau brand: one that has zero tolerance for inappropriate touching, except for his own; one that preaches respect for Indigenous Canadians, except when you can get a cheap laugh at a Liberal fundraiser. One that claims to run government differently, but […]

What were you doing when you were 29? Working? Buying a condo? Getting married? Dressing up in blackface and brownface at parties? Yeah, I didn’t think so. As Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau tries to extricate himself from an increasingly inextricable situation, one question looms large: how could a grown man, an educated man who sought […]

Chances are the teaching staff at Justin Trudeau’s prestigious Montreal college did not blink an eye when he painted his face black to sing a Harry Belafonte song at a high school talent show in the late eighties. Inasmuch as the young Trudeau was not mocking Afro-Americans but rather purporting to honour Belafonte, it likely […]