Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has won the Unshackled’s Cuck of the Year Award every year since we launched it in 2016. Elected the Liberal Party of Canada’s leader in 2013, he led the party to a historic landslide victory at the 2015 Canadian general election, taking the Liberal Party from just 36 seats to 184 seats in the House of Commons, winning a clear parliamentary majority.

Justin Trudeau is the son of former long-serving Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau. Pierre was one of the west’s first progressive national leaders, becoming Prime Minister in 1968.

Due to his physical appearance, there are rumors that Justin is the son of former Cuban dictator Fidel Castro, as Margaret Trudeau had visited Cuba during the period when Justin was born.

Like father, like son: Justin, from the moment he took office, aimed to be the 21st century’s most progressive leader. He made a special effort to make half his cabinet female, arguing this gender quota was needed because it’s the current year.

He proudly declared, “I am a feminist. I’m proud to be a feminist.” His Liberal Party passed legislation to change the lyrics in the Canadian national anthem ‘O Canada’ so that the song would use gender-neutral language.

He made reconciliation with Canada’s indigenous population a central focus of his government, supported multiculturalism and mass immigration, and cried when meeting Syrian refugees. He has also regularly attended local LGBT pride events. He made three national apologies as Prime Minister for past government injustices.

His government also passed Bill C-16 which amended Canadian human rights law to add gender identity to the list of protected attributes. The debate over the bill saw clinical psychologist Dr Jordan Peterson rise to fame, highlighting that the bill could criminalise incorrect pronoun use.

Backlash Begins

Trudeau reached peak woke feminist in 2018 when, during a town hall Q&A, a female questioner asked him about maternal love changing the future of mankind.

Trudeau interrupted (mansplained to) her, saying “we prefer to say peoplekind, not necessarily ‘mankind’, because it’s more inclusive”. The town hall audience immediately broke into cheers and Trudeau said: “we can all learn from each other.”

Given that “peoplekind” is a made-up English word no one had ever used before Trudeau’s use of it, it earned him worldwide ridicule and scorn. Trudeau tried to hose down the backlash by claiming he was making a joke: “I made a dumb joke a few days ago that seems to have gone a little viral.”

The gloss started to wash off Trudeau’s international reputation when he visited India in 2018. Now a rapidly developing nation which is becoming more westernised, Trudeau thought that it was befitting of a world leader to dress up in full traditional Indian attire.

Trudeau did not meet the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi until the end of his state visit, which most interpreted as an official snub.

A display of what much of the modern left labels cultural appropriation, Trudeau’s Indian trip was labeled an embarrassment not just by his conservative critics but by mainstream media outlets that had been pumping up his progressive credentials over the past three years.

Canadian Federal Election Called

Justin Trudeau has called a federal election for October 21, instructing the Governor-General of Canada to dissolve the 43rd Parliament on September 11.

Canada has a three-party system with Trudeau’s Liberal Party competing against the Opposition Conservative Party, led by Andrew Scheer, and the progressive New Democratic Party led by Jagmeet Singh.

Trudeau enters this re-election campaign in the middle of a major corruption scandal. Earlier this year, it was revealed he and his office had pressured the Canadian Attorney-General Jody Wilson-Raybould to drop a bribery prosecution against Quebec-based construction company SNC-Lavalin.

Trudeau’s rationale for protecting this company was that a conviction against it would see it banned from bidding for government contracts for 10 years. The Ethics Commissioner of Canada made a finding of impropriety against Trudeau. The Attorney-General was forced to resign.

But going into the federal election, Trudeau still has his die-hard progressive base willing to campaign for his re-election due to his commitment to social justice and his compassion towards oppressed minorities.

Brownface Photo Emerges

Based on his Indian state visit, we knew that Trudeau enjoyed dress-ups; after all, he had been a drama teacher at one of Vancouver’s most elite private schools early in his professional career.

Trudeau was revealed by Time Magazine in the United States to have worn brown-face makeup at an Arabian nights-themed party in 2001. The image appeared in the West Point Grey Academy yearbook with Trudeau appearing to be dressed as Aladdin, even though Aladdin was not very brown.

Canada Proud Twitter Account

Trudeau apologised at a press conference on his Prime Ministerial jet as soon as the story broke. His explanation was “I made a mistake when I was younger and I wish I hadn’t,” he said. Trudeau was 29 at the time the photo was taken. “I should have known better then, but I didn’t. And I did it. And I am deeply sorry for it.”

More Makeup Photos?

Trudeau was asked by a reporter if there were other occasions when he had dressed up in blackface/brownface. He recalled one: in a high school talent show he sang “Day-O (The Banana Boat Song)” by Jamaican-American singer Harry Belafonte while wearing “makeup”.

Following the initial explosive Time Magazine picture, and with Trudeau confessing that he put “makeup” on more than once, the mainstream media went on frenzied digging for more photos. Six hours later, the Day-O blackface photo surfaced on social media.

Then another six hours after the Day-O photo, Canadian news outlet Global News published a full video of Justin Trudeau from the 1990s in full blackface acting in a buffoonish manner, as if he were starring in a full-on minstrel show.

Trudeau, given that an apology worked with his base the previous day, apologised again. He tried to blame his repeated blackface dress-ups on his “layers of privilege”, obviously trying to shift his behavior onto the rest of white Canada: “I have always acknowledged that I come from a place of privilege – but I now need to acknowledge that that comes with a massive blind spot”.

Trudeau was asked why he didn’t reveal the blackface incident published by Global News. He claimed, “I shared the moments that I recollected.”

He did not tell the Liberal Party of Canada about these blackface dress-ups when he was first vetted to run as a candidate because he was embarrassed, but at the same time couldn’t recall exactly when these blackface incidents occurred or how often.

Election Fallout

Conservative leader Andrew Scheer focused on Justin Trudeau’s dishonesty in this saga: “He was asked specifically if there were other incidences and he said there was only one other incidence. Now we know there are at least three. And an apology based on a lie is not a real apology.”

Scheer called Trudeau’s blackface “racist behaviour” and another example of progressive double standards: “Once again, we see with Justin Trudeau, one set of rules for himself and one set of rules for the rest of us.” If Scheer had been exposed wearing blackface, his political career would be over.

New Democratic Party leader Jagmeet Singh is a native-born Canadian, a child of Indian immigrant parents. He is also an adherent to the Sikh religion and wears a Dastar turban which demonstrates the male’s adherence to the Sikh faith.

Singh said Trudeau had a lot to answer for: “I am deeply troubled by what this means to Canada. This is so hurtful to so many people … This is very painful for a lot of people,” labelling Trudeau’s multiple incidents of blackface part of an “ongoing pattern of behaviour” of mocking minorities.

Conservative Reaction

Some conservative critics of Trudeau have reacted differently to Trudeau’s blackface controversy. Local Canadian alt-media personalities Ezra Levant of Rebel Media and Stefan Molyneux of Freedomain Radio have said it was racist.

They and others agree that the history of blackface, from minstrel shows in the United States’ Deep South beginning in the late 19th century designed to ridicule African Americans, have resulted in the practice bringing up troubling memories.

Conservatives have also asked how the ‘woke’ Trudeau could not know the racist history of blackface in 2001, and given he was a teacher, not a student, how could he excuse it as dumb and foolish?

Other conservatives have said blackface should not be considered racist at all, if it is done for purely acting purposes. They prefer instead to focus on the hypocrisy charge against Trudeau, and that it is almost always those who preach against bigotry and discrimination who are exposed in scandals such as these.

Election Campaign Continues

Trudeau has ruled out resigning. His election opponents should not be calling for him to resign. Canadians vote in less than a month, they elected Justin Trudeau in 2015, they should have the final say on his performance and character as Prime Minister, including these recent blackface revelations.

The aftermath of the Trudeau blackface revelations has impacted the latest election polls. The Ipsos, Angus Reid and Ekos polls all taken after the scandal all have the conservatives ahead on the primary vote.

Justin Trudeau has been mocked for changing his Twitter profile picture to sitting next to a faceless black man. Many joked about which man was Trudeau, given how common it now seems for him to be in blackface.

Trudeau has also attempted to change the political discussion by proposing to ban and confiscate assault rifles in Canada. Climate and social welfare policy announcements by the Liberal Party have also been occurring.

Many progressive media outlets such as the Guardian and Fairfax have now disowned him. Not because of the blackface controversy alone, but the controversy has had the affect of breaking their infatuation with Trudeau so they can now see how the Trudeau Government’s policies in climate and foreign affairs have betrayed the progressive agenda.

The left is known for eating its own, never living up to the morality they preach as the new puritans. Justin Trudeau is not the first progressive to succumb to this downfall, but he is easily the most high profile one.

Author Details
Tim Wilms is the Founder and Editor in Chief of https://theunshackled.net. the Host of Tim’s News Explosion, the WilmsFront interview program and The Theorists with Andy Nolch. He based in Melbourne, Australia where he also conducts field reports.
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Tim Wilms is the Founder and Editor in Chief of https://theunshackled.net. the Host of Tim’s News Explosion, the WilmsFront interview program and The Theorists with Andy Nolch. He based in Melbourne, Australia where he also conducts field reports.