Trudeau again apologizes for wearing blackface, admitting privilege comes with ‘massive blind spot’

OTTAWA — Justin Trudeau is betting that conciliation can save his election.

A day after his campaign was blown up by racist images showing him in blackface, the Liberal leader on Thursday changed tone from defensiveness to atonement.

He expressed deep regret, declared that his privileged background left a blind spot to such racist acts, and insisted he was no longer the man in the photos, all in a bid to reset his re-election bid sideswiped by the controversial images.

The images have drawn worldwide attention and condemnation, and reshaped the campaign for the Oct. 21 election barely a week after it started.

For Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer, the images were further proof that Trudeau was no longer fit for office.

NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh reflected on the deep hurt it will have caused Canadians who have suffered the sting of racism. Ultimately, Singh said, it would be up to Canadians to decide in this election whether Trudeau should continue as prime minister.

But as Trudeau struggled to right his campaign Thursday night, the question whether his apology and appeal for forgiveness would be enough was ultimately one that Canadians would answer on Oct. 21.

The election just got a whole lot tougher for the Liberals, said Jason Lietaer, a former senior aide to Stephen Harper and now president of Enterprise, a firm that offers strategic communications. “Now their margin of error is totally gone,” Lietaer said in an interview.

Canadian elections are often decided by the swing votes of “about two to three thousand, maybe four thousand votes in each of about 40 to 50 target ridings,” he said.

A photo showing Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, at a 2001 costume party -- his hands and face blackened with makeup -- was published by Time magazine Wednesday. They say it was published in the yearbook from the West Point Grey Academy, a private school in Vancouver, where Trudeau worked as a teacher before entering politics.

“These are the things that breed uncertainty, and give opportunity obviously” to the Conservatives,” he said. “And the Liberals, 95 per cent of the people could stick with them, but if two or three per 100 switch, he’s got a massive problem.”

Trudeau acknowledged the images of him in blackface showed actions that were “racist” actions and that he now “deeply, deeply” regrets.

Yet, confronted with images that showed him in black or brownface on at least three occasions over three decades, he admitted he couldn’t be sure how many times he actually did it, saying his privileged upbringing had blinded him to the hurt such racist acts caused.

“This is something that I deeply, deeply regret. Darkening your face regardless of the context or circumstances is always unacceptable because of the racist history of blackface. I should have understood that then and I never should have done it,” Trudeau said in Winnipeg.

“I have always acknowledged that I come from a place of privilege, but I now need to acknowledge that comes with a massive blind spot,” he said.

The Liberal campaign was upended Wednesday when Time magazine published a photo showing the Liberal leader wearing brownface makeup and a turban at a 2001 party at the Vancouver private school where he taught.

At a hastily news conference call Wednesday, Trudeau expressed regret for the act and revealed that another incident of blackface when he was in high school and sang the Banana Boat Song (Day-O), a Jamaican folk song made famous by Harry Belafonte.

Yet, on Thursday, a video posted by Global News revealed a third incident, a brief clip of Trudeau in blackface, wearing a white T-shirt, sticking his tongue out. A Liberal party official confirmed it was him and said the video dated from the 1990s.

The images have drawn worldwide attention and condemnation, spurred Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer to declare that Trudeau was no longer fit for office and prompted an emotional reaction from NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh who reflected on the deep hurt it will have caused Canadians who have suffered the sting of racism.

The revelations sent Trudeau’s campaign schedule Thursday into disarray, as he remained out of sight for the morning, trying to limit the damage.

He held a mid-morning conference call with Liberal candidates, all left shaken, and in a series of phone calls, reached out to community leaders to offer apologies.

He finally met reporters mid-afternoon, but not before Liberals tried to restore some normalcy with Trudeau glad-handing customers in cafés along a Winnipeg street.

When he did speak, he struck a more conciliatory tone than his defensive reaction the night before, when he had declared that he was “pissed off” at himself.

He said several times that because of his privileged upbringing, as the son of a prime minister, he had never faced or endured the racial or religious discrimination faced by many others.

He spoke about the Liberal government’s work combating racism and intolerance, a track record he conceded was now in question because of the “ridiculous choices I made many years ago.

“Every though we have moved forward in significant ways … what I did hurt people who thought I was an ally,” he said.

And through it all, Trudeau insisted, “I’m not that person anymore.”

Get The Lead newsletter Start getting your whip-smart guide to Canada's 2019 federal election in your inbox. Sign Up Now

“I’m someone who understands the deep hurt caused by actions like that to people who live with discrimination every single day,” he said.

The New Democrat’s Singh on Thursday said that black and brownface “belittle and mocks that existence that someone lives.

“There’s a long history of mockery and ridiculing people for the way they look, and the use of brownface or blackface has really clearly been a part of racism,” he told Newstalk 1010 radio the morning after an impassioned plea to racialized Canadians not to give up on Canada.

Politically, Singh argued the contrast between Trudeau as Liberal leader — with his public embrace of diversity and social acceptance — and Trudeau “in private” brings up questions about his character and sincerity. He said it will even “be tough” to shake Trudeau’s hand at the next leaders’ debate of the campaign.

Asked whether Trudeau is fit for office, Singh said that is ultimately a question for Canadians to answer in this election. Singh said he intends to hold Trudeau to account for “horrible incidents of disrespect.”

In a press conference in Saint-Hyacinth, Que. Thursday, Scheer focused on Trudeau’s failure to disclose the third instance shown in the video, saying he lied, and his apology was unacceptable as a result.

A photo of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau wearing racist makeup from the April 2001 newsletter of West Point Grey Academy, the private school where he was a teacher at the time. Internet Archive

Rather than focusing on Trudeau’s racist act of wearing blackface, Scheer zeroed in on what he called Trudeau’s “failure to be honest” about how many times he’d done it.

“I think Canadians might have been able to accept Justin Trudeau’s apology if he hadn’t lied about it,” he told reporters.

“But he was asked specifically if there were other instances, and he said there was only one other incident. And now we know there are at three (total). An apology based on a lie is not a real apology.”

Scheer and his campaign had good reason to know of the third instance — they were the ones that leaked a video of Trudeau in blackface to Global News. The Conservative leader acknowledged that someone had come forward to his party with the video, and that the Conservative campaign then passed it on to Global for “verification.”

The Liberals had for days been attacking Scheer and Conservative candidates for past inappropriate or offensive comments on social media, part of a concerted effort to derail the Scheer campaign keep the Tories on their toes.

When asked if he had ever dressed up in a costume that could be considered offensive by ethnic or religious minorities in Canada, Scheer simply said “no.”

It’s not clear that an apology and an appeal for forgiveness will be enough for Trudeau and his campaign for re-election for a second term as prime minister in what was already a tight race with the Conservatives.

Trudeau dodged questions if there were yet more incidents, but finally suggested that he couldn’t remember. “I’m wary of being definitive about this, because the recent pictures that came out, I had not remembered.

“The question is ‘how can you not remember that?’ The fact is I didn’t understand how hurtful this is to people who live with discrimination every single day,” he said.

Trudeau, first elected in 2008, conceded that he did not disclose the incidents during his own vetting to be a Liberal candidate. “I never talked about this. Quite frankly I was embarrassed. It was not something that represents the person I’ve become, the leader I try to be.”

It was a day of reflection and damage control as he reached out to Liberal candidates and community leaders to apologize privately. While many condemned the images, they appeared ready to stick by the Liberal leader.

“I was very disheartened and disappointed to see these images. These indefensible images bring back many painful memories of racism that I and other racialized Canadians have experienced throughout our lives,” said Amarjeet Sohi, the Liberal candidate in Edmonton Mill Woods.

A high school yearbook photo from Montreal's College Jean-de-Brebeuf shows Justin Trudeau in blackface, wearing bellbottoms, and a loud print jacket. SUPPLIED PHOTO

But in his statement, Sohi went on to call Trudeau a “champion of diversity and inclusion.”

Harjit Sajjan, the candidate in Vancouver South, said that Canadians were “disappointed” by the images. “Justin Trudeau has sincerely apologized for these actions & acknowledged that this was unacceptable. These photos do not represent the person he is now. I know Justin and the entire party will continue to build a more equal Canada,” Sajjan said on Twitter.

Perry Bellegarde, national chief of the Assembly of First Nations, noted that First Nations have experienced a “long and damaging history of offensive, insensitive, inaccurate and racist portrayals.

“I am shocking and disappointed by what I have seen. The prime minister has accepted responsibility and apologized and people will make their decision on Oct. 21,” he said in a statement, referring to election day.

Bruce Campion-Smith is an Ottawa-based reporter covering national politics. Follow him on Twitter: @yowflier Alex Ballingall is an Ottawa-based reporter covering national politics. Follow him on Twitter: @aballinga Tonda MacCharles is an Ottawa-based reporter covering federal politics. Follow her on Twitter: @tondamacc