February 9, 2025
The Liberal campaign is built around a sophisticated oppo research organization that says their opponents are bad people. Where does it stand now?
Trudeau apologizes on his campaign plane in Halifax, N.S., on Wednesday, over the 2001 brownface photo of him that surfaced
Trudeau apologizes on his campaign plane in Halifax, N.S., on Wednesday, over the 2001 brownface photo of him that surfaced

You’ll be relieved to know Justin Trudeau will be talking to his children about all this.

The Prime Minister will, he told reporters at the back of the Liberal tour plane in Halifax, be telling his children that when you make a mistake you need to own up to it.

I don’t know whether he’ll tell them it’s a good idea to wait 18 years and only commence the owning-up once the nature and details of your error have been published in Time magazine—or whether, yet again, he’ll be holding others to higher standards than he holds himself.

The mistake in question—he was the only person who showed up in brownface makeup to a theme party at the ritzy Vancouver private school where he was a teacher in 2001—is of the general class of error that one would probably have thought about in the intervening years. (What reaction did he get? Did the other faculty think he was being hilarious? Did they edge away as gently as possible? Did they talk about him later?) And perhaps Trudeau thought, when Virginia’s governor faced calls for resignation over his own blackface yearbook photo, that this was something he should discuss with senior staff. But no.

To his credit, once he was caught, Trudeau was contrite this time. Usually he doesn’t even bother. When he contravenes the conflict-of-interest law to take a fun family vacation with a billionaire spiritual leader, it’s just that we don’t understand he has nice friends. When he sends wave after wave of medium-quality enforcer to pressure his own attorney general to cancel a criminal trial for a well-connected engineering firm, it’s just that she isn’t a team player.

[…]

See Also:

(1) The debt, the deficit – and other things this election isn’t about

(2) For Andrew Scheer, the Doug Ford factor means this campaign’s cuts will be vague and victim-less

(3) Who is Cameron Ortis?: RCMP espionage suspect’s journey from geeky teen to man of mystery

(4) Lawless First Nations reserve will even sell a kilo of fine hashish online, and Canada Post will kindly deliver it right to your door