Singh speaks with Trudeau about brownface



In a recent sit-down interview with Global BC, NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh admits he’s spoken with Justin Trudeau about his history of wearing blackface and that the Prime Minister apologized for his actions.

“I’ve said this before that I want to keep that conversation private, and really it’s not for me to accept the apology, it’s for the people that were impacted by seeing the prime minister make light of their skin colour, make light of their challenges, make light of their barriers,” Singh said to Global News.

“I wanted to be very clear that while I would accept a sincere gesture on his part to reach out to me, I didn’t want to be used as a checklist of steps taken to exonerate himself from the situation.

“It’s only Canadians that can make that determination.”

The Canadian election campaign have been rife with shocking revelations that in at least three instances, Liberal leader Justin Trudeau wore blackface or brownface - popularly accepted as racist caricatures.

Time magazine had been the first to reveal that Justin Trudeau, who is currently running for re-election, wore blackface to a party in 2001 when he was a teacher at a Vancouver private school.

In Trudeau’s defence, Singh says there appears to be “two different Mr. Trudeaus” — a Trudeau who supports multiculturalism in public, and one who makes fun of other races in private.

In an interview on Global News, Trudeau said he regrets his actions.

“It was a terrible mistake and I take full responsibility for it,” he said. “I apply those high standards for myself. I will always fight against racism, intolerance, and discrimination and I hurt a lot of people who considered me an ally."

The Prime Minister does not seem to know why he did what he did and does not seem to remember how many more pictures of him wearing blackface, are out there. However he asked citizens to consider his track record on race issues and forgive him for this error in judgement.

“Putting real money and real initiatives and working hard to fight all this intolerance is something that I’ve done and I’m going to continue to do and I’m going to continue to do even more given that I have obviously not lived up to that in the past.”

In the same interview, Singh discussed his plans to tackle housing affordability in B.C. saying he would avoid Liberal spending commitments.

He also addressed resource projects, and said he wouldn’t let provinces veto project, “When projects like a pipeline are imposed on a province without a buy-in, without a collaborate approach, they just don’t go ahead,” Singh said.

“What happens is they get caught up in court, there’s court challenges, the project doesn’t proceed.”

He also spoke about the Trans Mountain pipeline expansion, saying,

“With respect to this project, I don’t want to give fossil fuel subsidies, I certainly don’t want to give penalties to a broken contract, and I don’t want to give billions of dollars to the fossil fuel sector.”


Comments

There are 0 comments on this post

Leave A Comment