Categories for Feature

My latest: the speech Justin Trudeau should have given, but won’t

— 09.24.2019 07:17 AM

My fellow Liberals, my fellow Canadians.

Last week, I spoke about the scandal that has hit my campaign. I didn’t do it right, so I’m now going to try again.

First things first: over and over, I used the wrong pronoun. I talked about how “we,” as a country, need to do better. How “we” need to be less racist.

I got that wrong. I shouldn’t have said “we.” I should have said “I.” Because I – not we – was the one who smeared stuff all over my face and my body and mocked black people.

It was I – not we – who was racist. Me. Repeatedly – as a high school student in Montreal, and then as a teacher of high school students in Vancouver.

When I was thirty years old. When I was a man, not a boy. When I was supposed to know better.

In the video that came out, everyone focussed on the blackface-style racism, and they should have. But they missed something, maybe because the video was grainy.

In it, I’m wearing a T-shirt with bananas on the front. I’ve stuffed something down the front of my jeans. And I jump around like an ape.

I did all of that to communicate something that I’m amazed so many of you missed. I did it to suggest that blacks are apes. Which was the worst kind of racism.

Oh, in case you are wondering if I did blackface more than those three times, the answer is yes: I did. I repeatedly, and gleefully, acted like a racist. I can’t remember every detail because I was wasted.

The people who work for me have all forgiven me, of course. What do you expect? When the boss asks people for forgiveness, they will always give it.

But I must say that Liberal MPs of colour – Navdeep Bains, Omar Alghabra, Greg Fergus – surprised even me with how speedily they pronounced me without sin. I think we all know that if Andrew Scheer had done blackface on Halloween at the age of five, Navdeep, Omar and Greg would be convening a Human Rights Tribunal right now to have Scheer thrown in a gulag in Nunavut for the rest his life.

Because black face is racist. What I did was racist. I wanted to communicate that black people are worthy of mockery. That they are apes. That they belong in cages. That’s as racist as it gets.

Now, last week, I tried to excuse away my racism by saying I was a child of privilege. That I had grown up with a “blind spot” about such things. But we all know that’s a lie.

Growing up rich, and going to the best schools – being a child of privilege – doesn’t excuse my racism. In fact, it’s the reverse: it makes my racism all the more wrong. I, growing up in the house of the man who gave Canada a Charter of Rights, should have known better.

Anyway, words are cheap. I apologize for stuff all the time, to the point where the apologies have no meaning anymore. All that matters is actions, not words.

So, I will now do what I should’ve done last week. I intend to resign the office of the Prime Minister soon after the election, win or lose. And, by the way, I’m amazed I could still win it. That says a lot more about Canadians that it does about me, frankly.

So, there you go. I need time to get away and learn to be a better Dad, a better husband, a better man. I can’t do that as Prime Minister of Canada.

Because words can’t excuse what I did.

Because what I did was racist.

Thank you.


Comments (24)

My latest: in a campaign about nothing positive, don’t give them something negative

— 09.23.2019 09:18 AM

The land is strong.

Sound familiar? Remember that?

The old-timers do. It was an actual slogan that was deployed in the 1972 federal election campaign. Didn’t work out too well.

In yesterday walks tomorrow, they say, and that is certainly true when one compares 1972 to 2019. The similarities are striking.

• In 1972, a Trudeau led the Liberal Party, as in 2019.
• It was a Liberal majority government seeking another majority, as now.
• Back in 1972, as in 2019, the Conservatives were led by a kind of boring, bland guy who everyone underestimated.
• The Liberals’ 1972 slogan, “the land is strong,” sucked. So does the Liberals’ 2019 slogan, “Choose Forward.” It’s ungrammatical and uninspiring.

But the Justin Trudeau folks are wedded to their crummy slogan, just like Justin’s Dad was to his. Everywhere Trudeau the Younger goes, he robotically repeats the “choose forward” mantra, and no one knows exactly what it means.

That’s never a good idea, politically but it’s potential lethal when a scandal hits – like the blackface scandal. When you have no positive message, it makes it easier for a negative message to take its place. And blackface has.

Is an election won or lost on a slogan? Of course not. But a good one should give voters a pithy idea about what is on offer. Like, you know, “Melts in your mouth, not in your hands.” Or: “Just Do It.” Or: “The Quicker Picker Upper.”

The big problem with “choose forward” is that it actually reminds voters about Justin Trudeau’s biggest problem. Which isn’t LavScam, or the Aga Khan, or Gropegate.

It’s that he hasn’t done what he said he was going to do. And he hasn’t done much at all, really.

Let’s crack open the history book again.

From 1968 to 1972, when his Dad was Prime Minister and enjoying a strong parliamentary majority, lots of things were done: the Just Society, universal health care, regional development, parliamentary reform, bilingualism, multiculturalism, pro-NATOism, multilateralism, staring down separatism and terrorism.

When you examine the elder Trudeau’s first majority term – and whether you respected him or not, and this writer really did – it is remarkable how much was accomplished in a relatively short period of time.
But, despite all that, Pierre Trudeau was still reduced to a minority in 1972.

His son, meanwhile, doesn’t have much to brag about, legislatively. Legalization of cannabis, and … that’s it.

History will not remember Justin Trudeau for lots of important legislative achievements, because there haven’t been any. It’s been a lot of social media sizzle, but not much policy steak.

Broken promises and voter disappointments: they’re not predicaments unknown to incumbent governments, true.
But, if there’s enough of them, they’re why those governments get defeated.

And, at this point, Justin Trudeau isn’t known for any achievements at all. He’s known for being a racist, and wearing blackface.

Pierre Trudeau wasn’t defeated in 1972. But, despite a lot of legislative achievements, he almost was. He, the Northern Magus, lost his Parliamentary majority to the efforts of Bob Stanfield – who, like Andrew Scheer, was regularly mocked and maligned.

“Choose Forward” strongly implies that what preceded it wasn’t all that great. In Justin Trudeau’s case, he wants us to think of mean old Stephen Harper when we think about that past.

But what if voters start thinking about the more-recent past – and what, if anything, Justin Trudeau has achieved?

He hasn’t achieved much. There’s a reason why Justin Trudeau is less popular than Donald Trump, you know.

The land is strong? When compared to something like “choose forward,” the 1972 Liberal campaign slogan is practically a detailed 100-page policy platform.

Canadians are going to “choose,” alright.

Based upon his paltry, puny legislative record – based on his racist blackface stunts – Justin Trudeau may deeply regret asking Canadians to do so.


Comments (43)

My latest: Justin Trudeau likens black people to apes. Don’t let him get away with that.

— 09.19.2019 09:30 AM

An ape?

The video is grainy. It’s blurry, and it’s hard to make out who is in it.

But we don’t have to guess. The Liberal Party of Canada has confirmed to Global News – which released the video on Thursday morning – that it depicts Justin Trudeau, the leader of the Liberal Party and the Prime Minister of Canada.

Acting like an ape.

In the video, he’s covered (again) in blackface. He really worked at it, too: he made certain to smear dark make-up on his face, neck, ears, arms. Even his legs. We can see through the holes in his jeans that he did that.

There are three photographs, now, of Trudeau in blackface. One from his high school days in Montreal, and two from a party at the high school he taught at in Vancouver. With his hand on an unidentified young woman’s chest.

He was about thirty in that last photo. He was someone who taught kids – who was supposed to be setting an example for kids.

But we digress. Back to the video.

In the video, Justin Trudeau is seen for only a few fleeting seconds. There’s no sound. But it is unmistakable what the future Prime Minister of Canada and his pals are doing.

Trudeau’s acting like an ape. Sticking out his tongue, waving around his arms, shuffling around like a simian would, in a zoo or a jungle or something.

I showed the video to my shocked colleagues when they came into the office. Two of them are card-carrying Liberals. They agree with me: Justin Trudeau was in blackface, acting like an ape.

Now, why would he do that?

Brent Staples is a member of the editorial board of the New York Times. Around the time Roseanne Barr called an advisor to Barack Obama the progeny of an ape, Staples wrote an extensive study about that. About how racists like to depict black people as apes.

Like Justin Trudeau did.

Here’s Staples: “[It’s] one of the oldest and most profoundly racist slanders in American history…This depiction — promoted by slave traders, historians and practitioners of “scientific” racism — was used to justify slavery, lynching and the creation of the Jim Crow state…[It’s] the ape caricature.”

Throwing bananas at black public figures. Making noises like apes at public events. Calling Michelle Obama “an ape in heels.” It’s all aimed at one simple, incontrovertible message: that black people are animals. That they are less than whites. That they belong in cages.

At this point – and with the Trudeau in blackface leading newscasts around the planet – the evidence cannot be rebutted: the Prime Minister of Canada, as man and not just a boy, traded in the foulest racist stereotypes. He thought it was funny. He thought he could get away with it.

So, that’s him: he’s the scum of the Earth. He doesn’t deserve to be elected dogcatcher, let alone a Prime Minister of a G7 country.

Oddly, the issue isn’t him. It’s now the members of the Liberal Party. It’s us.

Will Liberal MPs now publicly condemn their “leader,” as I counselled two distressed Grit MPs to do this morning? They must.

And, Canadians, too, have a decision to make. Will we let him get away with it? Trudeau and his loathsome coterie are laying low, clearly believing this all will blow over in time. And it might, you know.

It is up to us – Canadians – to say: not good enough. Not on. Not this time.

Justin Trudeau – the goddamned Prime Minister of Canada – is on a video, this morning, joking that black people are, you know, apes.

This man is unfit. We, Canadians, must line up on October 21 and reject him and his ways.

We must.


Comments (102)

My latest: this isn’t the face of a Prime Minister

— 09.18.2019 07:42 PM

Blackface.

I’ve been writing about, and researching – and opposing – racism for more than thirty years. And make no mistake: blackface isn’t funny.

It’s racist.

Ask Megyn Kelly. A year ago, the former Fox News star was filming a segment about Halloween costumes and “political correctness.” Someone asked whether it was acceptable for a white person to smear black makeup all over their face and pretend to be black.

Here’s what Kelly said: “But what is racist? Because you do get in trouble if you are a white person who puts on blackface on Halloween… Back when I was a kid that was OK, as long as you were dressing up as, like, a character.”

There was a massive backlash. Kelly apologized. But her show was cancelled not long afterwards.

Just this year, Alabama’s governor, Kay Ivey, faced demands that she resign because audio of a skit emerged from when she was in college – even though the person in blackface was her then-fiance. Not her.

Ivey still apologized.

Also this year: upscale fashion brand Gucci fired its global head of diversity because he hadn’t stopped a “balaclava jumper” from going on sale. The jumper featured an image that resembled blackface.

In Canada, we’ve experienced blackface backlash, too. Theatre impresario Robert Lepage faced protests when one of his plays apparently contained scenes that recalled blackface. Some University of Montreal students wore blackface to “pay tribute” to champion runner Usain Bolt. The university was forced to apologize for that.

So why is blackface so controversial? Why is what Justin Trudeau has done so wrong?

Because blackface is literally about white people caricaturing black people. It recalls the era when blacks were referred to as “darkies” and “coons.” It was something popularized in minstrel shows to suggest that blacks were inferior to whites. That they were stupider. That they were deserving of derision and mockery.

David Leonard, a professor at Washington State University, and an expert on the manifestations of racism, says this: “It’s an assertion of power and control. It allows a society to routinely and historically imagine African Americans as not fully human. It serves to rationalize violence and segregation.”

Is Justin Trudeau racist?

Well, his appalling treatment of a proud indigenous woman, Jody Wilson-Raybould, didn’t exactly suggest Trudeau was nearly as tolerant as he regularly claims to be. When asked about Donald Trump’s suggestion that four Democratic politicians “go back” to the “crime infested places” they came from, Justin Trudeau refused to say Trump’s racist statements were in fact racist.

Said Trudeau: “Canadians and indeed people around the world know exactly what I think about those particular comments.”

Do we really?

After Canadians have looked at that shocking photo of the Liberal prime minister mocking and denigrating black people – after the embarrassment and shame he has now brought on Canada internationally – it’s hard to know exactly what Justin Trudeau was thinking. Or if he thinks at all.

At the end of this shocking revelation, we are left with one thought: this is not the face of a prime minister.

Like Megyn Kelly, Justin Trudeau’s little show needs to be cancelled, once and for all.

Warren Kinsella is a Sun columnist and author of five award-winning books on racism.


Comments (27)

RESIGN NOW

— 09.18.2019 06:10 PM

⁦Justin Trudeau⁩ in blackface when he was a teacher.

This guy is unfit for public office.

He needs to resign, but he won’t.

So: fire him on October 21.




Comments (32)

Scheer is running a boring, bland, basic campaign – and it seems to be working

— 09.18.2019 08:07 AM

I think there a few factors at work here:

  • Doug Ford decided to lay low for the Summer and the federal campaign, and it’s helping Andrew Scheer in seat-rich Ontario
  • Scheer is offering stuff (pocketbook-related), as is May (climate-related) and so is Singh (anti-corporate-related) – but Justin Trudeau just isn’t
  • It’s incredible, but Trudeau is running the same sort of disastrous policy-free “Land is Strong” campaign his Dad embraced in 1972, after his first term – and with likely the same outcome
  • As John Moore said to me on Newstalk 1010 this morning, Twitter is not where the campaign is happening – and Scheer, who has more money and a bigger organizational reach than Trudeau, is focussing on the real world, with aggressive voter ID and GOTV


Get ready for Team Trudeau to go neg, big time.


Comments (21)

My latest: Trudeau has the power to let her speak

— 09.16.2019 07:56 AM

Let her speak.

That was the headline on an iconic Toronto Sun headline way back in February: let her speak.

Let Jody Wilson-Raybould – then still a cabinet minister, then still a member of the Liberal caucus – tell Canadians what she knew about Justin Trudeau’s attempts to influence the prosecution of the corruption trial of Quebec’s SNC-Lavalin, a big donor to his party.

It was important. In early February, the Globe and Mail had revealed that Trudeau and ten of his most-senior advisors had attempted to short-circuit SNC-Lavalin’s prosecution no less than 22 times over a four-month period. Wilson-Raybould said no, 22 times.

It would be wrong, she said. It was obstruction of justice, others would say.

Enraged by this proud Indigenous woman who didn’t know her place, Justin Trudeau demoted Jody Wilson-Raybould to Veteran’s Affairs. But the LavScam story wouldn’t go away. The scandal grew. There was a cancer on the Office of the Prime Minister, and everyone knew it.

Desperate, Trudeau relented somewhat. He issued a cabinet decision permitting Wilson-Raybould to speak about some – but not all – of what she knew. She testified before a Commons committee, and what she had to say plunged the Trudeau regime into one of the biggest scandals in recent Canadian political history.

When she testified, however, Jody Wilson-Raybould made one thing clear: she had more to say. She knew things Canadians needed to know.

But still, Trudeau would not let her tell all. And, even now, with the election campaign underway, Justin Trudeau refuses to let Jody Wilson-Raybould speak.

How long the RCMP have been investigating LavScam is unknown. Trudeau and his senior staff lawyered up months ago, so perhaps it’s been that long. But the Mounties are on the case – and Justin Trudeau is doing his utmost to stymie their investigation. He’s adamantly refused to waive the cabinet confidentiality that would let Wilson-Raybould speak to the police.

Reached by the Sun on Friday, Wilson-Raybould said that she has spoken to the police, and more than once. But she says there’s not much she can say to them, or me.

Said Wilson-Raybould to the Sun: “Thanks for your inquiry. I can confirm that I was interviewed by the RCMP on Tuesday of this week. I am not going to comment any further on the nature of those discussions.”

Not because she doesn’t want to, of course. But because Justin Trudeau – the guy who solemnly promised in 2015 to return ethics to Canadian public life – won’t let her. He says the Clerk of the Privy Council – his personal bureaucrat – makes that decision, not him.

It’s unknown if lie detectors beeped to life across Canada, when the Prime Minister said that on day one of the election campaign. They could have. They should have.

The Clerk serves at the pleasure of the Prime Minister, not the other way around. Trudeau is the boss. That’s not all: decisions of the Prime Minister and his cabinet have the force of law; the Clerk’s doesn’t. Trudeau has true power, not some unelected bureaucrat.

His prevarications are cowardly and craven and dishonest. But they’re not the main reason Justin Trudeau shouldn’t be believed.

The main reason is this: Justin Trudeau, personally, was the one who authorized the February 25, 2019 cabinet decision – number 2019-0105 – to waive confidentiality and permit Jody Wilson-Raybould to appear before the Justice Committee. Right in the very first line, it said the decision had been made “on the recommendation of the Prime Minister,” quote unquote.

Him, Justin Trudeau. Not some bureaucrat. Not a member of his cabinet. Him.

Justin Trudeau had the power then to let Jody Wilson-Raybould speak. Now he claims he doesn’t.

He’s lying.

And he needs to let her speak – because she knows the truth.


Comments (8)

My latest: Trudeau’s Seinfeldian campaign launch

— 09.13.2019 02:33 PM

Nothing.

That’s what Justin Trudeau had to say when he launched this, the 43rd federal general election. Zero, zippo, zilch.

Oh, sure, he said some stuff. He stood there in front of Rideau Hall, a focus-grouped gaggle of ethnically-diverse Canadians behind him, and he sprayed the usual Trudeau-esque word salad all over the unimpressed ink-stained wretches.

“I’m for moving forward for everyone,” he squeaked, oozing boyish charm. “We’ve all got a choice to make: keep moving forward and build on the progress we’ve made, or go back to the politics of the Harper years.”

Odd, that. Firstly, last time we checked, Stephen Harper isn’t running in this election. And, secondly, if the Liberals’ oxymoronic brain trust think Stephen Harper’s name still evokes fear and loathing from coast to coast to coast, they’re on drugs.

Smart Conservatives say that Harper ain’t reviled like he was four years ago. Not even close. Keep talking about Harper, Grits.

But that isn’t what was so bizarre about Justin Trudeau’s campaign launch. What was bizarre was this: nothing.

Meaning, that’s what he said: nothing. Apart from the jab at a guy who isn’t running, Justin Trudeau didn’t put the minutest amount of effort into defining the so-called ballot question. He didn’t say why he wants to keep being Prime Minister.

Years ago, Ted Kennedy blew his shot at the presidency when he couldn’t answer that eminently-reasonable question, posed to him by CBS’ Roger Mudd. Conversely, on Wednesday, all the other major party leaders said why they wanted the top job.

Invoking her inner Trekkie, the Greens’ Elizabeth May called us Earthlings, and said it’s all about climate change. The NDP’s Jagmeet Singh said the vote is about the little guy and gal, and he’s all for the little people.

Andrew Scheer cheerfully reminded everyone to read up on how Trudeau is stonewalling a police probe of LavScam – and then said the election is about pocketbook stuff, and helping folks get ahead. Which he’ll do.

It’s Politics 101, more basic than never getting photographed while eating something: on Day One, you get your guy or gal to bound up to a microphone and say what the election is all about, and why you are the best guy or gal for the job. And then you charge off to your campaign plane or bus, and head out to the hinterland.

(Unless you’re May and Singh, that is, in which case you will be campaigning on bicycles, or using a brisk walk.)

Justin Trudeau didn’t do that. He did what Teddy Kennedy did: he said nothing, basically.

In fairness to the Liberal leader, there’s not much he can say. After mishandling relations with India, China and the US – to wit, where’s the new NAFTA, Justy? – foreign affairs ain’t anything to brag about. Likewise, domestic affairs: Trudeau has helped to elect seven, count ‘em, seven conservative Premiers across Canada.

Same with ethics: he’s the first Prime Minister in history to be found guilty of violating two federal statutes (over LavScam and the Aga Khan) while still in office.

Fiscal probity? It is to laugh: he giddily broke his solemn promise to balance the budget. Ditto electoral reform. Feminism? Um: Gropegate, elbowed a female MP in the chest, exiled two women who (a) are way smarter than him and who (b) wouldn’t do what he told them to.

And so on, and so on. Justin Trudeau has nothing to say, and nothing he said. So he stepped out into the Ottawa sunshine, that cloying grin playing on the face that isn’t as youthful as it used to be, and said what he’s done to improve Canada, and what he’ll do to improve it if re-elected.

Which, as we say, is nothing.


Comments (37)