Conservative Leader Condemns Trudeau for Calling Truckers Racist When He Has ‘Worn Blackface More Times than He Can Remember’

Canadian House of Commons
Breccan F. Thies

Conservative Party deputy leader and lawmaker Candice Bergen condemned leftist Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for calling those protesting vaccine mandates “racist” and “misogynist” after he “wore blackface on more times than he can remember.”

Speaking in the Canadian House of Commons of the trucker-led protesters known as the “Freedom Convoy,” Bergen said, “I do get very defensive of Canadians who are outside today: patriotic, peace-loving Canadians who are called misogynists and racists by the Prime Minister.”

Images of Trudeau wearing blackface, dark face paint used for racist mockery of black people, first surfaced in 2019. Trudeau admitted to the initial photos as more surfaced of him in racist costumes on other occasions. Asked by reporters if knew of other instances in which he had worn blackface, he admitted that there were too many of them and he could not be “definitive” about how many.

“I am wary of being definitive about this because the recent pictures that came out, I had not remembered,” Trudeau acknowledged.

On Monday, Bergen accused Trudeau of being divisive and “gaslighting” Canadians, saying, “All Canadians want to see a leader who will work to heal rifts, not further divide. A leader who will listen, even to those voices he might not agree with. A leader who will work to understand, not dismiss, name-call, and gaslight.”

Bergen was in the middle of a heated debate with Trudeau’s Minister of Public Safety, Marco Mendicino, who responded saying, “I think we all support free speech in this House, but there’s a big difference between free speech and inciting hatred, inciting violence, desecrating war memorials, Mr. Speaker, and I would hope my honorable colleague would denounce that in the clearest terms.”

He called the protesters “radical leaders” who “are not really interested in free speech because they want to pretend as though vaccines don’t work.”

Bergen, to raucous applause, condemned all “hateful and destructive acts by a few at any protest,” making sure to note many instances of leftist violence and statue desecration in Canada.

“Whether it’s beheading the statue of Queen Victoria in Manitoba, tearing down the statue of Sir John A. [Macdonald] in Montreal, or putting flags on Terry Fox,” she said.

Bergen recited a list: “Whether it’s burning down churches, whether it’s wearing blackface, whether it’s Hezbollah flags, or NAZI flags, we all condemn it. But I’m not talking about that.”

Mendicino then accused the protesters – who, according to the Ottawa police chief, have engaged in no violence or property destruction – of having “called for the incitement of violence, to overthrow this government, who have caused significant disruption by flagrantly ignoring public healthcare measures that have forced shops and businesses to close, that have desecrated war memorials.”

“They’re not interested in free speech, they’re not interested in discourse, and they’re certainly not interested in advancing our way out of this pandemic,” he continued. [Emphasis added].

To this, Bergen appeared to accuse Mendicino of lying, saying, “That minister is not telling the truth and it’s shameful to see what he is doing,” before being stopped by the Speaker for decorum. She then toned it down a bit, saying “That minister is misleading Canadians.”

Even as Conservative MP Arnold Viersen attempted to pass a motion condemning blackface by unanimous consent, members of Trudeau’s Liberal Party of Canada shot it down.

Trudeau fled Ottawa and was taken to a “secret location” as the Freedom Convoy arrived in the capital city. At the location, he continued to undermine the protesters by giving a speech in which he said they were wearing “tinfoil hats,” and he said receiving the vaccine to take care of one another is “what being Canadian is.” He also said that he did not meet with the Freedom Convoy because he did not “agree” with them, unlike with leftist Black Lives Matter protesters, whom he kneeled before in 2020.

“I have attended protests and rallies in the past when I agree with the goals, [and] when I supported the people expressing their concerns and their issues. Black Lives Matter is an excellent example of that,” he said.

Despite Trudeau’s contention that receiving the vaccine is “what being Canadian is,” polling released Monday suggests a majority of Canadians want to end all coronavirus restrictions.

Canadian officials, on the other hand, are seeking an end to the Freedom Convoy. Ottawa Police Chief Peter Sloly, who acknowledged the assembly in the national capital was peaceful, said, “All options are on the table” to end it, including “enforcement.”

While thousands of truckers and other Canadians converged on the capital city of Ottawa in protest, Trudeau called the protesters a “fringe minority” with “unacceptable views.” This “fringe minority,” however, raised more money than Canada’s top political parties, clocking in at $9,746,900 Canadian, or almost $7.7 million USD.

Trudeau’s Liberals, on the other hand, raised only $3.7 million Canadian, and the Conservatives had just over $3 million Canadian.

Breccan F. Thies is a reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow him on Twitter @BreccanFThies.

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