My Letter to the Editor of the New York Times
About this bullshit.
Let’s see if they publish it. I’m not holding my breath.
In her June 8, 2018 news story, ‘Between the smiles, mounting tensions between Trudeau and Trump,” your Catherine Porter goes to considerable lengths to insinuate that a report about Mr. Trudeau “handling” a young reporter in British Columbia in August 2000 only surfaced as part of some ill-defined conspiracy by pro-Trump forces. In this, she is flatly wrong, and I would know.
The article, from the Creston Valley Advance, was sent to me – an author, a former Hillary Clinton volunteer and a one-time Special Assistant to another Canadian Liberal Prime Minister, Jean Chretien – last Wednesday evening. It was sent to me by a Canadian Member of Parliament who requested anonymity. I agreed to give it.
I investigated the report. The eighteen-year-old article was authentic. It stated as a fact that that Mr. Trudeau, years before he himself became a Member of Parliament, “handled” a young female reporter at a local festival. The article further stated that Mr. Trudeau had apologized for his conduct, quoting him as saying he wouldn’t have done it “if I had known you were reporting for a national paper.”
When I published the editorial and my own commentary on my web site – just two monosyllabic words, “Um, what?” – I was not doing so as a tool of Breitbart (as Ms. Porter insinuates) or because I was “a well-known critic of Mr. Trudeau” (as Ms. Porter states).
I was doing so because I have been very active in promoting the stories of Canadian women who have raised their voices in the #MeToo moment. I did so because, as noted, I considered the notion that our Prime Minister had allegedly sexually assaulted a woman to be, as noted, quite newsworthy.
If your Ms. Porter had bothered to make the merest effort to seek my comment, I would have told her all that. She however made no such effort whatsoever. Instead, she published a misleading and dishonest account.
I have been an active Canadian Liberal and am still a Hillary Clinton supporter. The notion that I would re-publish such a report to further the interests of “the ideological champions of Mr. Trump” is outrageous and flatly wrong.
I published the story because it was authentic and it was news.
Two considerations, clearly, that matter less to your Ms. Porter.
Sincerely,
Warren Kinsella, LL.B
Privilege in this communication is not waived.
