, 09.02.2021 08:15 AM

My latest: the Harvey Weinstein Party

Sexual assault.

Because that’s what we’re talking about, isn’t it? Whether the Prime Minister of Canada — and several members of his party — sexually assaulted women.

It’s an important question, and not just because there’s an election going on. It’s important all the time, because it happens all the time, at every level of society. Sexual harassment and sexual misconduct, too.

The Criminal Code of Canada says “sexual assault” happens if a person is touched in any way that interferes with their sexual integrity. It includes kissing, touching, intercourse and any other sexual activity without his or her consent. It’s a crime to do those things.

The definition of sexual assault was on my mind the evening of June 6, 2018. Someone — a female Member of Parliament — had sent me a message.

“Hi Warren,” it read. “Do you know about this B.C. community paper editorial about Trudeau being handsy with a reporter before he was in politics?”

I said I didn’t.

The anonymous correspondent sent me the August 2000 editorial from the Creston Valley Advance. It described an encounter between the author of the editorial — who I have never named, and I never will — and Justin Trudeau at a beer festival.

The paper stated, as fact, that Trudeau had groped the female reporter. And then how, after learning that she also wrote for a newspaper in the Postmedia chain, apologized for touching her.

“I’m sorry,” the newspaper quoted Trudeau as saying, after the incident. “If I had known you were reporting for a national paper, I never would have been so forward.”

The editorial went on from there, criticizing the future prime minister for “groping a young woman” he didn’t know.

I checked the British Columbia archives. The editorial wasn’t fake news. It was real. I checked up on the reporter: She had indeed worked at the Creston Valley Advance.

What the editorial described, on the face of it, was sexual assault. Groping someone without their consent is sexual assault, full stop.

I decided the best thing to do was to place the editorial on my website, with no commentary, and no identification of the victim. Within hours, the story ricocheted around the world, covered by everyone from CNN to the New York Times.

What was Justin Trudeau’s response to the story? Well, he blamed the victim, basically. Said he didn’t know what she was thinking.

And then he went jogging. Shirtless.

That, to me, was so lacking in self-awareness — so lacking in respect for what that woman had experienced, frankly — it made me want to throw up.

Because, you know, zero tolerance.

That’s what Trudeau has said, many times. That he and his party have “zero tolerance” for sexual harassment and sexual misconduct.

In 2018, he gave interviews to Canadian Press and CBC about the subject. Here’s what he said.

“We have no tolerance for this — we will not brush things under the rug, but we will take action on it immediately,” he declared.

He said the same sort of thing to CBC Radio. There, the self-proclaimed Feminist Prime Minister proclaimed: “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.”

No, he hasn’t. No, he isn’t.

And we have been provided with yet another goddamned example of that, just this week, mid-election. When we learned that a member of his Liberal caucus has been the subject of multiple complaints of sexual misconduct and worse. One of the complainants actually attempted suicide.

Trudeau’s response? He says he believes the MP. And we simply don’t know if he or his PMO consulted with the RCMP. We need to know that. We deserve to know that.

So, it’s relevant that, early Wednesday, Trudeau’s former attorney general — Canada’s lawyer, in effect — wrote this online about the latest allegations: “Anyone who has a responsibility to address (the Liberal sexual misconduct allegations) and does not is not fit to lead. Anyone who stands by and does nothing is complicit. Anyone who is surprised has not been paying attention.”

Well said, Jody Wilson-Raybould.

Is it sexual assault? Is it sexual harassment? Those are, and will remain, important questions.

But here’s another one: After all that we now know, why the hell would anyone vote for this creep?

— Warren Kinsella is the founder of the Daisy Group, a firm that has worked with multiple women who have experienced sexual harassment in Trudeau’s Liberal Party

28 Comments

  1. Sean says:

    PM: O’Toole
    IA: Finley
    Finance: Bergen
    Defense: Alleslev
    AG: Moore
    Immigration: Uppal
    Health: Doherty
    SOW: Rempel
    Industry: Chong
    House Leader: Scheer
    Agriculture: Zimmer
    Public Safety: Morrison
    DPM / Intergovernmental Affairs: Poilievre – because that would be fun

  2. Douglas W says:

    Canadians are souring on Justin, but many voters still feel secure with the Liberal brand, especially in the GTA.

    JT may well eke this one out.

  3. Leo Fleming says:

    Why did the media just allow this to go away? He fucking sexually assaulted a young woman. We all know that he did it. Why is this ok?

    • Douglas W says:

      I remember, during the ’84 federal election, John Turner gave Iona Campagnolo a playful bum tap.

      Media roasted Turner, and rightfully so.

      Today, Team Trudeau can do whatever they want, and the media lets them get away with it.

      Must be because the Libs bought the media.

  4. RKJ says:

    Really, does anyone think this guy cares about the Afgans who helped Canadians?

  5. Glen says:

    The “old boys club” mentality is still alive & well these days it seems, but in the Liberal Party of Canada it is absolutely flourishing.

    The fact that liberal women MP’s remain silent on this lends credence to your calling the Trudeau liberals a cult Warren.

    • Phil in London says:

      I’m waiting for my local Liberal candidate to show up on my door so I can ask her why she’s obsessed with going to Ottawa as fresh meat for this awful gang.

  6. Jason says:

    Anyone still enabling this creep needs to admit to themselves, once and for all, that they don’t give a fuck about anyone in this country other than themselves.

    There are problems in every party. There is much we can pick apart between O’Toole, Singh, and the leaders of the fringes. But with Trudeau, we have vacuousness, vanity and naked ambition that only Max Bernier could ever hope to approach.

    End this. Any vote for a non-Liberal candidate is a vote to save the country.

  7. Earl Brown says:

    Thank you Warren Kinsella for posting this. We’re all growing sick and tired of the complicit ‘media’ for giving a pass to liberal sex offenders.

  8. Peter Williams says:

    Justin’s Liberals have zero tolerance, but for criticism of the Dear Leader. Witness bill C10.

    Justin said he called the election because there were things he wanted to do, but the opposition (NDP or Bloc) wouldn’t support. What are those things? More money for WE? More money for his family?

  9. A. Voter says:

    Warren, has anyone at the media outlet you work for asked Margaret Atwood if she’d like to comment on the Trudeau Liberals and the parties record on sexual assaults?

    • Robert White says:

      Nobody in Canadian media would have the guts to ask Dr. Atwood what she thought about Feminist-in-chief Trudeau, or his policies.

      Old Maggie Atwood would undoubtedly have valid points to listen to if one was so inclined to ask her for a comment.

      She is one smart intellectual IMHO. And as Canadian intelligentsia she ranks high on my list of people with wisdom in contemporary Canadian society.

      RW

  10. Joe Calgary says:

    I’ll tell you why someone votes for him Warren, because they are stupid and lazy. My own brother, a mensa member, with a Masters in English Lit. informed me last night that he thinks O’Toole is a thug who will get hammered tonight because he doesn’t speak French… I was to shocked to see he was that out to lunch to correct him. Let the dummy find out tonight. He’s leaning towards Singh because he likes how Singh thinks, and thinks his wife is hot. She is hot, but the poor girl is pregnant so “yikes”. He’s the genius in the family, I’m merely brillant.

    My Mother thinks O’Toole is just another lying Tory because she’s still miffed with Mulroney’s wife getting her hair dresser appointed to the privy council and she was against the GST, and she thinks Justin is “cute” so he gets her vote. She’s 82, has a BS in Archeology, although at least she knew O’Toole could speak French. She thinks anyone who wears a Turban isn’t fit for public office, so Jagmeet got blown out of the water before he got started. On top of that, I remember her and my Father cheerfully getting drunk and driving off to participate in the egging of Justin’s dads train as he passed through Calgary in 82′. You’d have thought it was X’mas they were having such a good time.

    My sister, also a University graduate, doesn’t even know who’s running. When I asked her which way she was leaning, she asked in regards to what. I replied “the federal election dummy”, and she said “Oh, I didn’t know there was one”.

    Is it any wonder we only get decent government once every 40 years or so. Yep, there’s your University educated voter. Canadians generally just don’t give a shit about the details. These days they usually just want to hear the plethora of empty promises, parsing the ones that suit their personal narative and off they go to the polls to do their civic duty.

    God forbid they scratch beyond that for the details… That would require effort.

    • Vancouverois says:

      “He’s leaning towards Singh because he likes how Singh thinks, and thinks his wife is hot.”

      AND THINKS HIS WIFE IS HOT.

      What the hell.

      Seriously, just… what the hell?

      • RKJ says:

        and, I know a fellow who still refuses to vote Conservative because John Diefenbacker cancelled the Avro Arrow back in the 1960’s…..

        • cate moore says:

          That’s understandable at least.

        • RKJ,

          The logical approach would have been to build it jointly with the Americans but there was no way in hell that the American defence establishment was about to do that. So in the end, Dief did the only logical thing given the escalating costs and the apparent lack of future serious buyers.

          • RKJ says:

            Hello Ronald, knowing this threat is about Justin & am now referring to “Dief the Chief”, my only confusion with his decision, as I understand, was to order the destruction of all the blueprints and draft models of the engine and aircraft. There must be a further story there – very possibly threats from the Americans.

            Guess we can consider this thread to be about leadership and good judgement – Mr. Dressup fails all around here.

  11. Gilbert says:

    Nobody would hire Justin Trudeau to run their company, so how can he run the country? If he were an ordinary man, he’d be in serious trouble with the law. It’s time for voters to look past his empty words and promises.

  12. Ronald O'Dowd says:

    JPB,

    My take, whether I’m ultimately proven to be correct or full of shit is that Liberals have at the very least a waning enthusiasm for this government. In other words, I expect about 40% of Liberal supporters to sit this one out as an unspoken editorial on how this Prime Minister has quite literally run his party straight into the ground — and not given a shit if the Liberal Party was seriously or mortally wounded. Yup, that’s this PM’s mindset to a tee. Himself is all and only about himself. Deal with it Liberals.

    • Robert White says:

      Warren already said that if you are fighting defensively on your back foot you are losing. Feminist-Sock puppet PM is running in fear from his own lack of integrity displayed for all Canadians to see via his hollow rhetoric about how ‘we are all in this together’ when we all know the Trudeau Liberals are merely fighting defensively and losing in the polls on each iteration published by the pollsters.

      So far the narrative seems to be ‘bad man O’Toole’ is not unlike ‘bad man Harper’. The theme the Liberals are running with merely serves to prove Warren’s 1st Law of Electioneering which is to stop digging if you find yourself in a hole with a shovel.

      The negative ads are supposedly coming out next week, and someone on talk radio today said that the Liberal War Room ‘has some sort of ‘fake’ #MeToo’ hatchet work to release on O’Toole next week. That was the second last caller on 1310 Rob Snow Show this morning and the host characterized the speculation as ‘rumor’ mill that should be expected.

      I have the notion that the Liberal War Room will be ultra aggressive and even more defensively positioned by Monday. Clearly, next week is going to be offensive warfare between all the parties & pundits.

      It’s a FUN election so far IMHO.

      RW

  13. Ronald O'Dowd says:

    Mainstreet: Conservatives +5

    Nanos: Conservatives +3

  14. Vote Quimby says:

    That picture….what a douche

  15. Peter Williams says:

    Sexual assault? Liberals experience it differently.

    And if ever “rigorously investigated” do they even interview the victims?

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