Whenever Prime Minister Justin Trudeau hits the international stage, his over-active tongue somehow gathers the opinion that it is the spokes-vehicle for the entire gathering of nations.
He is far from it, of course, but the importance he places on himself is breathtaking.
He thinks he’s as brilliant as a Young Sheldon but, in reality, he’s just a silly boy.
Following the G7 convention in Hiroshima, the Italian media was quick to condemn Trudeau’s latest misstep on the world stage with the Milan-based Libero newspaper splashing a picture of the Grit prime minister on its front page in full blackface glory with the headline, translated from Italian which read, “This buffoon wants to teach us lessons.”
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, a self-described feminist, is being slammed for his “repugnant” behaviour after trying to “mansplain” democracy to his Italian counterpart Giorgia Meloni.
Meloni seemed none too pleased at the summit when Trudeau told her before private, bilateral talks that “Canada is concerned about some of the positions Italy is taking in terms of LGBT rights.”
He added that he looked forward to speaking to her more about the issue and “other democratic principles that the world needs.”
The Italian leader fired back Sunday, saying she rejected Trudeau’s criticism and that the Liberal leader had fallen “victim” to “fake news.”
Even Sky News Australia got in on the act, saying Meloni’s grimace while being lectured “really sums up what all of us think of the repugnant, incompetent Trudeau.”
Ouch!
Trudeau’s critique on Friday came in response to news that Meloni’s government told Italian city councils to stop officially recording both parents in same-sex couples and instead limit it to the biological parent. The move has sparked protests by gay rights groups.
Grimaces are not a rarity in Trudeau’s circle.
Remember how Chinese President Xi Jinping threatened and scolded the prime minister for the world to see at last fall’s G20 conference in Bali? As Toronto Sun columnist Lorne Gunter put it, “you don’t treat someone you respect or consider competent as though he was a bumbling schoolboy.”
Yet there was Trudeau . . . front-and-centre.
Even Alberta Premier Danielle Smith had a grimace on her face this February when she was forced to shake Trudeau’s hand for the mandatory photo-op. Even their handshake was awkward.
She has repeatedly disparaged Trudeau’s government as not a true national government and passed controversial legislation granting her government power to direct provincial agencies to ignore federal laws.
With a provincial election upcoming, Smith had to put obvious distance between herself and the unpopular Trudeau.
And then there was Trudeau’s bizarre handshake Friday with Kim Jin-pyo, speaker of the Korean National Assembly.
During the standard photo op with Kim, Trudeau bizarrely spread his legs a metre or more apart — supposedly to make it look like Kim and Trudeau were around the same height,
His pose can only be described as embarrassing.
It was not as embarrassing as his family’s dress-up tour of India in 2018, but only because the Korea gaffe was short-lived.
The Trudeau family’s Bollywood costume party on the Ganges went on for days.
But it was the black-faced Trudeau on the front page of a major Italian newspaper that flipped the mind back to 2019 when the story first broke — internationally — when Time magazine published a photo from a 2001 yearbook from the Vancouver private school West Point Grey Academy, where Trudeau taught.The school staged an Arabian Nights-themed gala. Trudeau dressed as Aladdin, in blackface and a turban.
Within days, two more unrelated pictures (and a video) surfaced of a black-faced Trudeau.
Trudeau held an emergency news conference on his campaign plane. He apologized and said he “should have known better.”
“I take responsibility for my decision to do that. I shouldn’t have done it,” he said. “I should have known better. It was something that I didn’t think was racist at the time, but now I recognize it was something racist to do and I am deeply sorry.”
“Didn’t think it was racist??” That was the silly boy talking.
