It was years — even decades — ago, during a different time and different cultural sensitivities. People change, and their views evolve with the passing of time and greater understanding.
This is often the apologist rhetoric paraded by Conservative Party Leader Andrew Scheer to defend candidates who have in the past made homophobic or racially insensitive comments.
“As long as someone takes responsibility for what they’ve said, and addresses the fact that in 2019 some things that may have been said in the past are inappropriate today, that if anything that they’ve ever said in the past caused any type of hurt or disrespect to one community or another and have apologized for that, I accept that,” Scheer earlier this month told reporters during an overnight flight on his campaign plane from Ottawa to Vancouver.
“I accept the fact that people make mistakes in the past and can own up to that and accept that.”
Unless, of course, we’re talking about the opposition. Then, suddenly, they are “not fit” for office.
Liberal Party Leader Justin Trudeau, whose bid for re-election on Oct. 21 is becoming an increasingly stiff climb up an all-but-impossible slope, went viral overnight last week after a 2001 image of him in brownface at an “Arabian Nights” themed dance at an academy where he was teaching at the time was published by Time.
The Liberal leader has since been working overtime profusely and unreservedly apologizing without dodging, downplaying or dismissing the matter.
“I dressed up in an Aladdin costume and put makeup on. I shouldn’t have done that. I should have known better, but I didn’t and I’m really sorry. I take responsibility for my decision to do that," said Trudeau.
To the people that Trudeau has invested so much effort in presenting himself to as a stalwart progressive, his words will very likely ring hollow.
However, let’s just for a moment, ignore the convenient timing of the image’s release just weeks before the federal election.
Less easy to turn a blind eye to are Scheer’s contradicting comments.
Interestingly, earlier this month before this latest scandal broke, mere days after claiming a candidate who has demonstrated questionable judgment in the past merely need apologize, Scheer refused to apologize for remarks he once made that compared same-sex marriage to a dog’s body parts.
When pressed, he instead implied his candidates don’t need to apologize or even explain themselves, so long as they express a commitment to support fundamental freedoms and constitutional rights in the future.
That Scheer would even feign shock over Trudeau’s past indiscretion is the rather nauseating height of hypocrisy.
“Wearing brownface is an act of open mockery and racism. It was just as racist in 2001 as it is in 2019,” he said in condemnation.
Well, comparing marriage equality to animal body parts was just as homophobic in 2005 as it is in 2019. But Scheer apparently doesn’t feel the need to own up to his own standards.
A classic case of “Do as I say, not as I do.”
If Scheer had a shred of integrity, he would follow his own advice, and point out that the Liberal leader without hesitation apologized, and that Canadians should be more concerned about Trudeau’s policies than his past indiscretions.
Because let’s face it, had an embarrassing instance of brownface surfaced from the past of a Conservative Party candidate, Scheer would be defending this person as someone who merely made a mistake and should be granted an opportunity to atone.
And he wouldn’t even be wrong. After all, an election should be determined based on a party’s policy proposals — not something a candidate did 20 years ago.
- Ducatel is the editor of the Sundre Round Up, a Great West newspaper
