Published: 10/15/2019
Justin Trudeau was the (neo)liberal pretty boy of the world’s liberals. Handsome, intelligent, well-spoken, and tolerant, his election to Prime Minister of Canada in 2015 represented a Canadian version of the neo-liberal ideology of President Barack Obama. With the election of President Trump, Trudeau’s image has evolved to a natural foil to the crass, narcissistic, and nativist imagery emanating from the Trump White House. Trudeau has been portrayed as a scientifically-literate defender of the environment, a kind and benevolent welcomer of the world’s refugees, a feminist who made half of his cabinet female, the peace-loving pillar for human rights. “When they go low, we go high” the liberal chorus sang inspired by their tolerant Canadian muse. “The earnest Canuck became ubiquitous, particularly in West Coast media, championing all sorts of liberal causes, such as saving Darfur or mentoring indigenous youth.”1 The Rolling Stone even called Trudeau the North Star, “the free world’s best hope” in the age of Trump and other neo-fascists.2
Now, the image of the prime minister seems to have brown paint all over it. Time magazine released a picture of Trudeau from a 2001 party in full brownface. “The picture was taken at an “Arabian Nights”-themed gala. It shows Trudeau, then the 29-year-old son of the late former Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, wearing a turban and robes with his face, neck and hands completely darkened. The photograph appears in the 2000-2001 yearbook of West Point Grey Academy, a private day school where Trudeau was a teacher.”3 By the end of the day, Trudeau had apologized at least a dozen times for the incident, even admitting other incidents of blackface.
Politicians from across the political spectrum were quick to weigh in on the matter. “I was extremely shocked and disappointed when I learned of Justin Trudeau’s actions this evening. Wearing brown face is an act of open mockery and racism. What Canadians saw this evening is someone with a complete lack of judgment and integrity and someone who’s not fit to govern this country.” said Conservative party leader and Trudeau’s main rival in the 2019 election Andrew Scheer. Green party leader Elizabeth May said, “I am deeply shocked by the racism shown in the photograph of Justin Trudeau. He must apologize for the harm done and commit to learning and appreciating the requirement to model social justice leadership at all levels of government. In this matter he has failed.” People’s party leader Maxime Bernier said, “I’m not going to accuse Justin Trudeau of being a racist. But he’s the master of identity politics and the Libs just spent months accusing everyone of being white supremacists. He is definitely is the biggest hypocrite in the country.” Finally, New Democrat leader Jagmeet Singh lamented, “seeing this image today, the kids that see this image, the people who see this image, are going to think about all the times in their life that they were made fun of, that they were hurt, that they were hit, that they were insulted, that they were made to feel less because of who they are.” Polling expert Darrell Bricker “What we do know is that the Prime Minister’s image has been critical to the Liberals’ political success. This picture runs completely contrary to the image of tolerance the Prime Minister has so scrupulously cultivated. It can’t be good for him or his Party.” Trudeau quickly went on a lengthy apology tour, from news reporters to little girls, no constituent was spared at least four “I’m sorry’s.” Whether this will effect Trudeau’s reelection October 21 has yet to be revealed.
There were those who–while not excusing these incidents–came to Trudeau’s defense nonetheless. Canadian author and essayist Stephen Marche reiterated Trudeau’s successes during his first term. “The Liberal government of Justin Trudeau is the most successful progressive government in the world. It instituted a carbon tax and legalized marijuana. Last year, for the first time, Canada settled more refugees than any other country. Because of higher government benefits, child poverty is at its lowest level in history. Economic growth this year reached 3 percent. That is what Trudeau has done.”4 Marche ultimately blamed the left itself for making this a bigger issue than it was saying the Left’s “instinct to punish is inherently self-defeating…The woke will always break your heart… If voters who believe in multiculturalism cannot forgive face paint, the multicultural project as policy may not survive.”5 For Trudeau apologists, these incidents of brownface are outliers in the otherwise stellar progressive project of the Trudeau administration.
But, it’s worth critiquing exactly how successful and progressive Justin Trudeau’s first term as Prime Minister has been. Perhaps this specific incident is indicative of the problematic nature of neo-liberal indifference & tolerance. In the different realms of politics, has Trudeau’s image been an ideal for policy or a displacement?
Trudeau is widely hailed as the penultimate white male feminist-ally. At the beginning of his administration, he assembled a cabinet with equal numbers of men and women, including several people of color. “It’s important to be here before you today to present to Canada a cabinet that looks like Canada,” Trudeau said at the time. “Because it’s 2015.”6 Yet, his policies have gone from indifference to outright bullying. Little has been done by Trudeau’s administration “to improve the negligible access to family planning and abortion services in the socially conservative maritime provinces.”7 Then came the corporate scandal of SNC-Lavali, a multinational corporation based in Montreal. “The company is facing criminal charges for corruption and bribery of officials in the now-deposed Gaddafi regime in Libya, and, in the recent past, has been found guilty of bribery and making illegal campaign contributions to both the Liberals and Conservatives.”8 Attorney General Jody Wilson-Raybould led the prosecution against SNC-Lavali. The Trudeau administration spent months pressuring Wilson-Raybould to drop the case, finally, resulting to her being removed as Attorney General and placed in a less prominent cabinet position. When questioned about the harrasment against Wilson-Raybould, Trudeau denied an interference prompting Wilson-Raybould to resign from Trudeau’s cabinet altogether. “Wilson-Raybould delivered a powerful testimony to a parliamentary justice committee detailing the pressure she’d received from Trudeau and ten other top government officials to overrule the public prosecutor and offer SNC-Lavalin a deferred prosecution agreement.”9 Feminist Justin Trudeau responded to this testimonial by expelling Wilson-Raybourd from the Liberal Party caucus, along with Jane Philpott who resigned from Trudeau’s cabinet in solidarity with Wilson-Raybourd.
Presenting as a peace-loving Canuck, Trudeau has kept Canada from engaging in military conflicts internationally and condemned human rights abuses in China. But, one of his first acts as Prime Minister was appointing Harkit Sajjan as defense minister. “Sajjan’s record as a Canadian intelligence officer in Afghanistan who turned prisoners of war over to the Afghan forces to be tortured gets left out of most media coverage, which instead focuses on Trudeau’s multicultural administration.”10 While Trudeau has condemned China, he’s had no problem selling weapons to some of the most oppressive regimes in the world including Saudi Arabia. “A case in point is Canada’s long tradition of serving as an international warlord — a supplier of arms and weaponry to anyone who can pay. Canada is now the second biggest arms dealer in the Middle East. John Bell lists Saudi Arabia, Nigeria, the Philippines, Mexico, Thailand, Colombia, Peru, and Turkey as customers of Canadian arms companies or multinational companies with powerful Canadian subsidiaries.”11 In fact, Trudeau made it easier for Canadian weapons manufacturers to sell weapons, placing him to the right of his Conservative predecessor Stephen Harper. Previous laws in Canada prevented arms exports that could be sold groups that presented threats to “the security of Canada, its allies, or other countries or people.” “This language stopped Harper from making certain deals with the Saudis, thanks to their massacres of civilians in Yemen and Bahrain.”12 Peace-loving Trudeau removed “other countries & people” limiting the weapons prohibition to just Canadian citizens allowing for trade with Saudi Arabia and other nations.
Surely, the progressive hero has supported workers rights. “Trudeau reached out to labor in the 2015 election campaign, promising improved relations compared to the previous Conservative government, and gave unions a seat at the table for Trump’s NAFTA renegotiations.”13 Yet, Trudeau supported and signed the Canada-Europe Trade Agreement (CETA), which protects corporations at the expense of workers. CETA allows international corporations to challenge government policies in special tribunals akin to forced arbitration where corporations are given stronger legal protections than other groups in domestic or international law.
Members of of the Canadian Union of Postal Workers (CUPW) have been fighting for job security, pay equity, and better safety regulations. CUPW, one of Canada’s most militant unions, seeing intransigence from the Trudeau administration on a new contract negotiation, in October 22, 2018 (almost a year after their previous contract ended) began tactical rotating strikes slowing down mail delivery. By the end of November 2018, Trudeau passed back-to-work legislation to force workers back to work despite a lack of contract.14
Though Trudeau did legalize marijuana “he placed former Toronto police chief Bill Blair in charge of the marijuana file; enforcement of pot laws has skyrocketed.”15 Trudeau also flip-flopped on supporting electoral reform to grant greater representation in Canada’s parliament. “In early 2017, the Trudeau government announced it wouldn’t be pursuing electoral reform, despite making it a major part of the Liberal Party platform.”16
Easily the most facile part of Trudeau’s image is the idea Trudeau is an environmentalist. Despite meeting with Greta Thunberg and marching in pro-environment rallies, Trudeau has done little to actually protect the environment. He continues to promote Canada as a source of tar sands oil, some of the filthiest and most difficult to clean petroleum. This is the same tar sands oil the Keystone XL pipeline promised to bring to the U.S. The Trudeau administration has continuously called for more and more pipelines to transfer this extremely dirty oil South of the border and ignored the rights of First Nations peoples. He even “joined Sarah Palin in a chorus of ‘drill, baby, drill.’”17 Of particular importance was the construction by Texas-based corporation Kinder Morgan of the Trans Mountain pipeline. “The pipeline was supposed to transport bitumen across 610 miles, from Alberta’s capital Edmonton to the British Columbia city of Burnaby, and has been in the works since the project was approved by the federal government in 2013.”18 During his 2015 election campaign, Trudeau promised activists an expanded review of construction. Once in office, “the government decided to shorten the timeline on an expanded review of the pipeline.”19
Chief Maureen Thomas, a leader of a First Nations tribe, gave the “Natural Resources Minister Jim Carr four major reports highlighting extensive warnings about Kinder Morgan’s Trans Mountain pipeline expansion.”20 She stressed the impact the Trans Mountain pipeline would have on First Nations land. “At the end of the day, it comes right down to water, food,” she said in an interview after her meeting. “When you keep depleting the natural resources — the health of them — it’s going to gradually flow out to everything else and that is really dangerous to our community and the surrounding area.”21 But, within 24 hours, the Trudeau administration ignored the 150 pages given to Carr and approved construction of the pipeline. The Canadian Constitution guarantees protected rights for First Nation peoples. “The government has a legal duty to consult First Nations on any decision that could impact their land, water or rights under Section 35 of the Canadian Constitution.”22 In fact, the supreme court of Canada has even gone so far as to declare consultations illegitimate if the government did not act in good faith towards First Nation peoples.
There’s good reason to believe these consultations were not in good faith. “According to the federal lobbying registry, [Kinder Morgan] reported lobbying federal officials in the government more than three dozen times in 2016 before Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced that he was approving the Trans Mountain expansion project.”23 Government insiders said they were heavily pressured by the Trudeau administration to approve the pipeline regardless of what First Nations people thought. “Public servants were never asked to prepare for the possibility that the government might reject the pipeline, they explain, or restart the federal review using a new and improved process that Trudeau himself had promised.”24 It seemed like nothing could stop the construction of Trans Mountain pipelines. But, indigenous groups weren’t done fighting. “They mounted strong protests and weathered arrests in a show of resistance that has now proved decisive.”26 The hypocrisy is astounding from someone that was essentially bribed by Kinder Morgan into approving the pipeline. Trudeau followed by promoting the economic and national interests to building the pipeline.
Activists thought they had succeeded in their battles against Kinder Morgan when the corporation announced it was abandoning the Trans Mountain pipeline in 2018. Yet, Trudeau wasted no time in wasting Canadian taxpayer dollars on polluting the environment. “Faced with legal, political, and economic uncertainties, and hit with opposition from both grassroots movements and the BC government, Kinder Morgan announced it would abandon the project in 2018. To most observers’ surprise, however, Trudeau’s government decided to purchase the megaproject outright, paying $4.5 billion for an existing pipeline and guaranteeing federal political support for the expansion.” In this instance it is clear Trudeau could not have done more to ignore the wishes of minority communities and environmentalists alike.
Justin Trudeau talks a good game when it comes to representing neo-liberal attitudes towards multiculturalism. Affirming difference is seen as useful because it opens new avenues for capitalist flows to prosper. As long as we appear open to difference–even if merely symbolically–capitalist flows can displace the often exploitative and oppressive conditions under which products are manufactured and distributed; this displacement sees minority communities as consumers, and the shallow tolerance of neo-liberalism accepts a certain level of difference in order to subsume groups within the evolving structures of neo-liberal capitalism. “Justin Trudeau represents everything wrong with politics in advanced capitalist countries right now. He is the future of center-left politics, a spectrum that ruling classes would like to see as cosmopolitan versus nativist, not socialist versus capitalist.”27 But, when it comes to actual policy, Trudeau follows the same ideology as Barack Obama. Trudeau “is the embodiment of the ‘edgy white liberal,’ a living Ted Talk, a cosmopolitan George W. Bush with Jeb Bartlett’s politics.”28 Trudeau sees no problem with society’s structures; “it just needs some tinkering, a little bit of compassion.”29 Considering the serious issues facing the world, it’s clear that the Trudeau program is woefully inadequate. Furthermore, it is more likely that Trudeau’s own indifference to multiple instances of black/brown face is an expression of a larger project with the goal of seeing difference as merely a commodity compared to a valued part of society. So, if we must burn Trudeau, lets make sure its not just for brownpaint on his face; but, also for the brown paint on his neo-liberal program.
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