Thanks. Don’t know why it did that.
Cite? Every time I am aware of fallout for the #metoo situation, there has always been additional evidence, not merely an accusation.
I have seen this alleged before, but have seen no proof. Even if it is an exaggeration, it is one that many people seem to actually believe. Hence I think it should be backed up.
From what have heard, Trudeau’s ‘offense’ was that he put his arm around the woman while they were all partying, she pushed him away, and he apologized.
The fact that this is even news is crazy. If that’s all there was to it, Trudeau was basically just being a bit of a tool, but he wasn’t doing anything that should sink a Prime Minister 20 years later, or even anything that wasn’t extremely common in the 90’s when young men and women mixed at parties and concerts - especially with alcohol and/or pot involved.
He’s still a lousy Prime Minister doing about as well as you would expect from someone whose previous life experience consists of being a substitute teacher and snowboard instructor before becoming a professional jet-setter and gadfly trading on his dad’s money and reputation, but this accusation seems like nonsense.
How reliable was the source from whom you heard this? None of the news stories I have read would go beyond the original charges of “groping and inappropriate handling.” I can’t imagine any stretch by which putting his arm around her would be called groping (well, I can imagine if he really stretched and got his hand past her shoulder, but then that wouldn’t be referred to as “putting his arm around her”). I can’t imagine any stretch by which, if she accurately reported that to her editor, it would have resulted in an editorial about a non-important non-political figure 18 years ago referring to the incident in those terms.
This is a fairly serious forum here in Elections, please clarify what you heard and whence you heard it.
To be fair, it’s scarcely even an accusation. The woman in question wrote a brief editorial expressing unhappiness with Trudeau’s behaviour, without elaborating on what exactly he did. That’s doesn’t really rise to the level of being an accusation.
That sounds like an absolute dream compared to what we are dealing with a bit to the south. :mad:
As I posted above, the woman who was the publisher of the original editorial said “I would not classify it or qualify it as sexual assault.” so arm around the shoulder is one of the few things that fit that statement and “groping”.
Trudeau ejected MPs Scott Andrews and Massimo Pacetti from his caucus based solely on allegations.
Allegations that both men, unlike Trudeau, have specifically denied.
He did not wait for the results of an investigation.
It depends on if you think the suspension was punishment. He didn’t expel them until receiving the results of the investigation but did suspend them before that.
I think a suspension is a punishment and shouldn’t be doled out on the basis of an accusation only, but if he wants to only suspend himself for now until his investigation completes I’m OK with that.
Thats not what you said. You said “ejected them from caucus” based solely on accusation, not “punished them”.
And suspension isn’t a punishment anyway. When you have serious allegations made, you can’t just let it be business as usual.
It also has to be noted that at the time apparently there was no harassment protocol for the House. A committee was struck and a policy came out in December 2014. The accusation was made directly to the PM by a NDP MP so it wasn’t a 20 odd year allegation raised by a 3rd party.
So the similarities are there but you have to really stretch them.
Correct, I should have said suspended instead of ejected.
I disagree that a suspension isn’t a punishment but agree with you that it can’t just be business as usual after serious allegations.
I’m fine with Justin just suspending himself until the investigation completes. It shouldn’t take long to complete that investigation now that the procedures appear to be in place based on the previous incidents.
How would you like to use a workplace harassment policy in the context of a private citizen not employed at said workplace?
You’ve never watched a hockey game, have you?
The timing is why I’m not inclined to believe the CPC is behind this. They would’ve been smart enough to wait until next year’s election to unleash this, where it would be fresh in the minds of prospective voters and have a much more probable chance of hurting the Liberals at the polls. Nobody’s going to care about this a year from now.
It is worth pointing out that the story had been floating around on the internet for months on end, but the media deliberately chose to ignore it since it lacked substance and the complainant was unwilling to discuss the allegation to any extent. Nevertheless, the story suddenly started gaining traction around the time of the G7 summit and was reported by right wing sites such as Breitbart. Coincidence? I think not.
Also… there have been credible reports that the Russians are trying to fuck with Canada right now. In light of the knowledge that they played a role in influencing the outcome of Brexit… yeah. It’s scary when you think about it. Hopefully the government is not taking for granted the possibility of foreign interference in next year’s election.
Though I agree with your analysis of the character differences between him and his father, I don’t agree that he moans about being picked on when he’s subject to scrutiny. He is either overwhelmingly apologetic or he avoids the issue altogether and dances around the subject/deflects.
Pretty much this. If this was a “grab 'em by the pussy” situation, I highly doubt that she would’ve shown any reticence in suggesting that this was precisely what happened. If there’s one prevailing commonality in all accusations of sexual misconduct that have proven to be credible, it’s that the victims do not shy away from explaining exactly what the perpetrators did to them. Not only is this done for credibility, it’s to shut down any dismissals that what occurred was “no big deal”. It’s to drive home the seriousness of their actions. Even the anonymous woman who accused Aziz Ansari of sexual assault went into excess detail when describing the situation, and that was how we all came to the conclusion that it was moreso miscommunication than coercion.
Rose Knight did none of that. She alleged that he groped her, but never specifies or even hints at which body part he groped. I find that strange. In fact, she spent most of the editorial admonishing him for being the son of a former prime minister and ends the column with this rather peculiar parting shot: “like father, like son”.
So would she have been less offended by his behaviour if he was the son of a local mechanic? What does “like father like son” even mean in this context? I don’t recall ever reading that Trudeau Sr. had a reputation for groping or sexually assaulting women.
Maybe Rose is a sneaky Breitbart’er.:eek:
I feel that a major difference between Pierre and Justin Trudeau is that Pierre was very much a liberal, in the classical sense of favouring the protection of individual freedoms. While Justin seems to be more about what I refer to as “vaguely progressive Canadian values”. When Pierre Trudeau was promoting multiculturalism, for example, his argument seemed to be about ensuring the freedom of individuals to choose their own cultural values without pressure from the government, while when Justin Trudeau promotes multiculturalism, it’s more from a vague sense of preserving ethnocultural communities’ identity or at least part of it. (I wondered for a long time whether Canadian multiculturalism was an individualist or communautarian value, until I figured out it can be either, depending on who’s talking.)
While I’m not a fan of Pierre Trudeau, I feel that his principles were much more defensible from the standpoint of philosophical consistency than Justin’s.
I also remember reading a quote by Pierre Trudeau from the late 70s, and while I don’t remember the exact wording, the gist of it was that if everybody in Quebec spoke English, French would disappear within a few decades. And interestingly enough the quote implied that he didn’t look upon this as a desirable outcome. I can’t imagine Justin Trudeau saying anything similar; as far as I can tell he’ll consider French Canadian identity to be safe as long as he’ll see people wearing arrowed sashes at festivals.
Irrespective of one’s political position I don’t think there is much doubt that Pierre Trudeau was an intensely intelligent man who had a clear philosophical position on major issues, while Justin Trudeau is neither an intellectual nor (as demonstrated so far) particularly principled or morally courageous.
Both men have their pros and cons, but they are quite dissimilar.