Fair enough, the self-proclaimed champion of
“liberal values” should be subjected to a bit of
public pillorying given that his youthful
minstrel days of imitating people of color
flatly contradict his more recent years of
virtue-signaling.
Since Trudeau (47) was
elected as prime minister in 2015, he has made a
big deal about promoting human rights as well as
gender and ethnic equality. On international
relations, he talks about Canada having a “feminist
foreign policy.”
At a superficial level, this guy is the
apotheosis of lefty, liberal sensibilities. He
shares a darling image among the liberal media
along with France’s Emmanuel Macron. Both
politicians are adept at using rhetoric
apparently dedicated to social justice, ecology
and internationalism. These guys are adored by
the Hollywood-type ‘woke’ liberals and Me Too
zealots as the embodiment of virtue, in
opposition to the likes of uncouth President
Donald Trump.
So, it is indeed amusing to see the
squeaky-clean image of Justin Trudeau being
dragged through the mud and for him to beg for
forgiveness over past transgressions of his
self-proclaimed values.
Nevertheless, the furore gripping Canada’s
media and political class over Trudeau’s past
seems to be way over the top.
Of course, with elections due next month, it
is to be expected that opposition parties are
exploiting bad publicity for the leader of the
Liberal Party. Edging ahead in the polls is the
Conservative Party, led by Andrew Scheer. He
professed to be “extremely shocked and
disappointed” by the racist make-up photos
of Trudeau dating from nearly 18 years ago,
when, as a 29-year-old, Trudeau had been working
as a teacher at an elite private college before
taking up politics.
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Scheer said the photos showed Trudeau
was “unfit to govern” and the
prankish images called into question his
judgement.
Other opposition parties have also joined the
fray in lambasting the prime minister. The
debacle may cost him his re-election bid.
However, surely the scandal is a storm in a
teacup and riddled with hypocrisy among Canada’s
political class.
Conservative leader Scheer has recently been
accused of turning a blind eye to growing
racist and xenophobic ranks within his own
party.
The sound and fury over Trudeau’s past
indiscretions bears a distinct sense of
contrived outrage and self-serving sanctimony.
For on actually important issues of racism
and human rights, the Canadian political and
media establishment are all culpable of
systematic denial.
Take the issue of Canada’s indigenous
nations. The Canadian state has balked at
providing substantial
reparation for centuries of persecution and
marginalization. Arguably, the native
populations were subjected to a policy of
genocide by successive Canadian governments,
which were dominated by European immigrants.
Christopher Black, a Canada-based
international human rights lawyer, said of the
systematic mistreatment of indigenous peoples: “It
makes the mind spin and the stomach churn to
learn that what has been going in Canada in the
past century and more is similar to what the
Nazis did in their concentration camps.”
He cites a recently published
study on the institutionalized oppression
towards Canada’s native inhabitants which
documents forced detention centers, labor camps
and stripping the people of their culture. “Punishments
included beatings, sexual abuse, electric shock,
isolation in cupboards, whipping, insults,
deprivation of food, more severe forced labour.”
Canada’s political class has never made
proper amends for their huge crimes driven by
their sense the racial superiority of the white
European settlers over the dark-skinned natives.
This systematic policy of depleting the
indigenous nations continues under all Canadian
governments, including the doyen of liberal
virtue, Justin Trudeau.
Two years ago, he gave a long address to the
United Nations General Assembly, apparently
calling out the misdeeds against indigenous
tribes by past Canadian authorities. The speech
was reported as a landmark ‘apology’ and proof
of Trudeau’s altruism. But closer attention to
his rhetoric shows the prime minister is agile
at playing down the gravity of the issue. He
talks about “past abuses” but not “crimes”.
As the lawyer Christopher Black puts it: “In
a nutshell, there has been a lot of rhetoric and
nice words expressed on rectifying the
‘mistakes’ of the past, but overall the social
condition of Canada’s indigenous people has not
improved, nor have they attained the sovereignty
they want. The institutionalized injustices rest
pretty much unchanged. Trudeau pays lip service
to their ‘rights’ but his government still holds
with the policy of trying to force the
indigenous people to disintegrate and cease to
exist as a culture.”
One revealing indicator is the way the
Trudeau government is in favor of pushing
through the giant 1,150 kilometer Trans Mountain
Pipeline. The project aims to transport crude
and refined oil from Alberta province to the
coastline of Vancouver, British Columbia. It has
been
criticized for its damaging impact on the
environment and its encroachment on the historic
land rights of indigenous Canadians, yet Trudeau
is in favor of implementing the project in spite
of his liberal rhetoric.
Another test case of Trudeau’s alleged
virtuous integrity is the massive $11.6
billion-dollar arms sales to Saudi Arabia,
involving the supply of 900 armored vehicles.
Equipped with heavy-fire cannons, the vehicles
have
reportedly been deployed by the Saudi
authorities in suppressing minority Shia
communities in the east of the country.
Canada has also emerged as a keen supporter
of US aggression towards Iran and Venezuela.
Trudeau’s foreign minister Chrystia Freeland is
a reliable surrogate for echoing Washington’s
rabid Russophobia and hostility towards China.
To be sure, Justin Trudeau the supposed
embodiment of liberal virtue and human rights is
a pathetic fraud. The disclosure of embarrassing
racist photos should be of little surprise,
given what we know of his real duplicitous
‘inner-self.’
But Canada’s political class looks ridiculous
for the superficial condemnations it is leveling
against Pseudo-Trudeau. The Canadian state has
plenty of racist blood on its hands both from
national and international foreign policy
conduct. These far bigger crimes and malfeasance
is what Canada should be really red-faced
about.
Finian Cunningham
has written extensively on international
affairs, with articles published in several
languages. He is a Master’s graduate in
Agricultural Chemistry and worked as a
scientific editor for the Royal Society of
Chemistry, Cambridge, England, before pursuing a
career in newspaper journalism. He is also a
musician and songwriter. For nearly 20 years, he
worked as an editor and writer in major news
media organisations, including The Mirror, Irish
Times and Independent.