Who benefits most from Trudeau’s self-damaging ways?

Who benefits most from Trudeau’s self-damaging ways?

By Shachi Kurl, Executive Director

Strategists have already opined that the “brownface” photos won’t be fatal to the Liberal campaign. Maybe they’re right – and maybe they’re not.

It is as if some siren governed by Hades is calling the prime minister to wreck his campaign ship on the jagged, rocky shores of idiotic behaviour, disingenuity and self-sabotage. For the second time this year, Justin Trudeau has picked up a sledgehammer and swung hard to severely damage, if not destroy, his own carefully crafted brand image.

In February it was ethics, and the hammer was SNC-Lavalin. This week, it was the high ground he (until Wednesday anyway) owned as the face and exemplar of what a tolerant, pro-multicultural and respectful politician should be. As multiple images – some from more than 20 years ago – show, he himself blackened and browned that face. It’s an act that is offensive, hurtful and demeaning. He did it for a night out, for dramatic effect, for a laugh.

No one is laughing now. Trudeau and the Liberals’ path to victory was dependent on two things: re-coalescing the centre-left voting base in Canada under their red banner; and motivating that base – comprised of young, urban people with a lower propensity to vote – to actually cast a ballot.

For the rest of this piece, please view it on the Ottawa Citizen’s site where it was initially published.


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