I heard about this on the news. It's kind of sad how much this election is turning to mudslinging. It's like the U.S. is a bad influence on us.
I have never seen an election that
didn't include mudslinging. It's just gotten a lot worse since the rise of the Reformacons and especially bad since our media is saturated with news stories of Trump indulging in daily doses of hate speech and his own citizens just sit back and let him do it.
I wonder how long some media outlet and/or politician had this in their folder waiting for the election to be called?? Who needs to consider policies when you can smear somebody with a picture from nearly 20 years ago!
EDIT: Cross-posted with aimee - so what she said!
Apparently it was somebody from the high school where Trudeau taught, who just decided to give this to Time magazine.
My speculation is this: I wonder how much money that individual made from this? And why didn't that person come forward in 2015? Did this surface because that person has a grudge against the Liberals, or only against Justin Trudeau himself?
It can't be because of outrage against racism, since the Reformacons are the party that fought in court in 2015 to prevent a woman from wearing a niqab to her citizenship ceremony, and planned to implement the "Barbaric Cultural Practices" snitch line so everyone who was not from the Middle East would be encouraged to spy on their neighbors and report anything "barbaric" going on.
Didn't something come out about Trudeau during the last election as well? Very odd how these revelations seem to be discovered at the most inopportune of times.
As I recall, the 2015 election issues surrounding Justin Trudeau included his socks, his "nice hair", and vitriolic, vicious attacks against Margaret Trudeau (conveniently ignoring the fact that when she engaged in wild behavior in the '70s and '80s, she was actually suffering from undiagnosed bipolar disorder).
Some of these people are still insisting that Justin Trudeau's real father was Fidel Castro, pointing at a photo of Margaret Trudeau and one of her sons when they were visiting Cuba. What they never seem able to grasp is that the kid in the picture is Justin's youngest brother, Michel (who died 20 years ago in an avalanche in BC). Margaret Trudeau and Castro didn't even meet until several years after Justin was born.
I mean, I don't really hold the same beliefs others do regarding costumes that involve different ethnicities, but I'm at least aware enough to know that most people no longer view it as kosher (and most people likely do not view kosher as kosher). But I think it's telling that even if Trudeau dressed up in brown-face in order to be racist, it doesn't really knock him down any compared to the other realistic candidates. Trudeau being a mustache-twirling racist behind the scenes is still better than Scheer. And Singh... well... what is Singh? As mentioned by others and myself, the NDP doesn't have much of an identity now, and you have no idea what you're actually getting.
The reason I don't have a lot of respect for Singh is that he never took his leadership responsibilities seriously. Instead of working to get a seat in the House, he frittered away his time in traveling around, and the time when he decided to call a press conference had nothing whatsoever to do with the party or anything political, and everything to do with announcing his engagement (like who cares about that?). And when reporters tried to pin him down on his views of the Air India issue, he still won't give a straight answer on that.
But (I say this cynically) he is benefiting from the "black/brownface scandal", since he's the only visible minority party leader. Not sure what his religion has to do with Aladdin, though. Singh is Sikh.
In the bigger picture, though, even if you see the Trudeau photo as being indicative of the worst, it's seemingly something that hasn't greatly impacted his governing. Of the current choices and the past leaders, he's been relatively alright on the representation and diversity front. More women, not giving in to anti-Muslim rhetoric. Mind, pretty bare minimum stuff, but given how the provincial politics are going, that seems like a big win. Not great with the indigenous peoples, but who is?
I don't know. To me, it doesn't really change anything. I don't think costumes are inherently racist, but even if they are, I just don't see how this changes the landscape. Maybe some reactionaries will shift.
I haven't been able to see if my comments on CBC.ca were let through or if they were disabled, but my take on the costume angle is this: I worked in musical theatre for many years, and some of the plays we did included characters of various non-white ethnicities. To hear the anti-Trudeau crowd, no theatre production should ever be presented unless you have actors/musicians/dancers of exactly the same ethnicity as the character. So I guess the producers I worked for should be publicly disgraced for casting a man from India as the King of Siam, his Indo-Canadian daughter in that play as well (she played one of the wives), a white Scottish woman as one of the palace slaves (her accent was very strong), and various other white actors and actresses in some of the ethnic roles. Well, excuse us, but we were just a wee bit short on the availability of Thai actors and actresses who could also sing and dance, and were from ages 5 to 40+. Yes, the white actors/actresses wore makeup so they would look Thai. The play had sold-out audiences every night and wonderful reviews, so I think they weren't too traumatized.
Why aren't these same people complaining about Peter Pan? If there was ever a racist play, I can't think of any to really compare with this one. I remember that it was fun at the time I worked on our production, but fast-forward 30 years to when I saw it on TV, and I realized just how disgusting it really is.
Yes. Since hockey is starting back up again, I'm once more exposed to TV ads. So many anti-Liberal CPC ads. They make me roll my eyes every time and they play at least once every commercial break. I haven't seen a single ad from the other parties yet.
It's bizarre. They're on at least twice per hour, every hour, on the Space (excuse me, the "CTV Sci-fi Channel") Channel, but I don't recall seeing them on other Canadian channels. They did trot out a new one (finally!), with the same obnoxiously whiny-sounding voice actress. I would guess that the attack ads based on this current scandal are in the works and we should expect them within the next week or two.
I've seen a couple of Liberal ads, but I don't really remember what was said in them other than the "moving forward" slogan.
Even if they do shift, they aren't likely to shift towards Scheer right? Like if someone finds these pictures to be racist, are they really likely to shift their vote to the party that has been linked to racists and white supremacists? I suppose an argument could be made that the Conservatives could gain from this because "Trudeau is less of a leader" because of this, but I doubt this would be the factor that would shift someone on that basis.
Maybe Singh and the NDP could benefit, but as you said, what exactly are the NDP for in this election? Some vague promises about doing good for the environment and some type of middle class tax cut? Had they been on the ball, they could have benefited a lot from this; Singh has the high ground in this and from what I've seen his initial reactions have been very well done, but is it enough to actually have someone shift that way? If I had been an NDP strategist I would have had Singh going to every town hall and in front of every camera for the past however long he's been their leader to build recognition while having someone coming up with Elizabeth Warren type plans hand over fist to be positioned for this exact moment. It wasn't hard to see that voters could be turned off by the Scheer vs. Trudeau election leaving a vacuum for them to walk into but I highly doubt that'll happen.
Singh is like Scheer - a placeholder leader until someone better comes along. The NDP would be in much better shape if Jack Layton hadn't died, or at least if Mulcair had read the electorate better in 2015. But Mulcair didn't want to be seen as racist for going along with the Quebec voters who agreed that it wasn't right for a Muslim woman to wear a niqab to her citizenship ceremony. They punished him for that by voting Liberal (Justin Trudeau had the sense to keep his mouth shut about the niqab issue, and reap the electoral rewards of not being seen to be for or against it).
After the blackface incidents Justin Trudeau would be stepping aside as Canada's Prime Minister surely? Or his party replacing him as leader? You can't have someone like this as a leader of a nation.
Stepping aside during the campaign is out of the question. Being leaderless during an election would be political suicide, and there just isn't enough time to choose someone else and get that person on the ballot by the time nominations close. Some other candidate would have to give up their riding, since whatever else happens, Justin Trudeau is still running to be an MP for Papineau. If he wins that riding, it's still his no matter if he's the leader or not.
But there is a possibility that he might step down after the election. In fact, if the Liberals lose - and lose a significant number of seats - Trudeau would be expected to step down anyway. It's customary for a party leader to do that if they lose a lot of seats.
Wearing brownface 20 years ago /=/ actively oppressing minorities through policy and public rhetoric in a position of leadership
It has been interesting to see all the Canadians who just last week labelled JT as giving Canada over to the Muslims are now claiming just how much he hates minorities ("Because he wore brownface! Unforgivable! By the way, do you want to sign my petition for banning hijabs?"), and how this is all a shining beacon to suggest voting for Scheer or Bernier is the right move (as they are paragons of integrity and honesty, see, unlike that criminal liberal).
Trudeau is damned if he does, and damned if he doesn't. Just a little while ago on CBC.ca, somebody claimed that "the Trudeaus" - plural - have been wrecking Canada for the past 50 years.
Pretty neat trick, given that Justin is only 47 years old.