Conservative Black Congress of Canada chair Tunde Obasan says the Liberals’ constant labelling of their opponents as “racists” is offensive and undermines the lived experiences of Canadians of colour.
Liberal politicians and operatives, including Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, have called several of their opponents racist – including members of the Conservative Party, protestors and Canadians who chose not to get vaccinated.
Trudeau has also accused Jewish Conservative MP Melissa Lantsman and her colleagues of standing “with people who wave swastikas” and “people who wave the Confederate flag” after she criticized his response to the Freedom Convoy protests.
In an interview with True North, Obasan said that “black Canadians, at different points in time, experienced some level of racism.” He added that this includes him and his family, who have experienced racism since moving to Canada from Nigeria.
“Racism is not something that you can attach to a particular organization. It’s a global issue. When you start using Racism (as a tool) to just gain votes, that is very, very undermining.”
Obasan believes some Liberal politicians “want to use (Racism) as a weapon to win the black community’s votes,” something he finds to be “very offensive.”
Obasan also finds Liberals’ racism accusations to be somewhat hypocritical amid the experience of former Whitby Liberal MP Celina Caesar-Chavannes and Trudeau’s numerous blackface incidents.
Caesar-Chavannes previously told VICE World News she quit the Liberal caucus and opted not to seek re-election in 2019 after feeling tokenized, excluded, and undervalued as a black woman.
The former Liberal MP ended up voting for the Conservative Party of Canada in the 2021 election, telling Global News “we keep continuing to reward bad behaviour from a Prime Minister that won the 2019 election, had a majority and a minority government for six years (and) continues to say ‘there is more to do'”
“I’m very much a Liberal at heart, but I would say that in this particular instance, in 2021, I don’t mind voting for my local representative, Maleeha Shahid, who is a Conservative.”
Haldimand—Norfolk Conservative MP and former two time leadership candidate Leslyn Lewis also recently called out Trudeau’s hypocrisy after he criticized a controversial meeting she and two other MPs had with German European Parliament Member Christine Anderson last month. Anderson has been accused of racism and extremism by several Canadian political figures.
“I was deeply, deeply hurt as a black Canadian watching the person holding the highest office in the land dress up as a black slave, dancing around, stepping and fetching and mocking black people, my ancestors, putting a banana in his pants and denigrating and objectifying black men,” said Lewis in an interview with the Toronto Sun’s Joe Warmington. “I want an apology (from Trudeau) for wearing blackface.”
“All he does is try to divide, demonize and try to destroy women’s careers, primarily minority women, and now he’s attempting to do the same thing to me and I am starting to believe (there was) a reason he wore blackface.”
“I want (Trudeau) to resign over blackface because I cannot stomach anymore to sit across from him and see this man,” she added.
The Conservative Black Congress of Canada was re-launched by Obasan and other black conservatives in 2021 in hopes to grow the conservative movement in Canada’s black community.
