Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, displaying his wokeness in a manner to which many critics took umbrage, will appear on a television show devoted to contestants competing to be the “next global drag superstar.”
Trudeau appeared in a trailer for the show “Canada’s Drag Race” which has an episode titled “Canada vs. The World” premiering November 18. The show features a grand prize of $100,000 and the title of “Canada’s Next Drag Superstar.”
“We’re making herstory,” a picture from the show boasted as it showed a smiling Trudeau next to a drag queen.
We’re making herstory! 🇨🇦 We’re honoured to welcome the Prime Minister of Canada @JustinTrudeau to #CanadasDragRace, becoming the first world leader to appear on the Drag Race franchise!#CanadasDragRace Canada vs the World premieres November 18 at 9E on @CraveCanada. pic.twitter.com/wlDXSrMGEz
— Canada’s Drag Race (@canadasdragrace) November 8, 2022
Trudeau was harshly criticized and mocked by some on social media:
More Canadians than ever are resorting to food banks and skipping meals to afford necessities but this is what our prime minister thinks is important 🙄 https://t.co/ywemycTYHI
— Cosmin Dzsurdzsa 🇷🇴 (@cosminDZS) November 8, 2022
Heard he got confused and thought the show was Canada’s Black Face. https://t.co/9apB1eAcFh
— Chris Tomlinson (@TomlinsonCJ) November 8, 2022
So did he lose https://t.co/9hiFTqfFr8
— Jack Posobiec 🇺🇸 (@JackPosobiec) November 8, 2022
Trudeau, who has been documented wearing blackface and brownface, was mocked in August after celebrating Emancipation Day, posting a message acknowledging the “painful history of slavery in Canada” and celebrating “the strength of Black communities.”
Today, we acknowledge the painful history of slavery in Canada. We also celebrate the strength of Black communities, who fought – and continue to fight – for justice and equality. Together, let’s keep building a more inclusive Canada. #EmancipationDay https://t.co/j74xyImflw
— Justin Trudeau (@JustinTrudeau) August 1, 2022
When Trudeau was 29, he dressed as Aladdin at a an Arabian-Nights-themed annual dinner at an expensive Vancouver private school, wearing brownface makeup. The photo was displayed in the 2000-01 yearbook for West Point Grey Academy. When he was in high school, he wore blackface to apparently pose as famed singer Harry Belafonte.
When the photo of Trudeau was revealed in 2019, Andrew Scheer, the Conservative party leader, reacted, “I was extremely shocked and disappointed when I learned of Justin Trudeau’s actions. Wearing brownface is an act of open mockery. It was just as racist in 2001 as it is in 2019. What Canadians saw this evening was someone with a complete lack of judgment and someone who is not fit to govern this country,” the National Post reported.
Social media reacted to Trudeau’s celebratory tweet:
“Gaslighting racist! You dress in blackface. You grope women. You fire indigenous women. You implement racist vaccine policies. YOU ARE THE RACIST,” one user tweeted.
The tweet about firing indigenous women referenced Jody Wilson-Raybould, Canada’s first indigenous attorney general and minister of justice. It had been reported that Trudeau’s office had attempted to force her to help a construction company avoid a corruption trial.
In her book, “‘Indian’ in the Cabinet: Speaking Truth to Power,” Wilson-Raybould wrote of a meeting with Trudeau three days after the front-page story in The Globe and Mail broke.
As soon as the story broke, the Prime Minister said that “the allegations in The Globe story this morning are false. Neither the current nor the previous attorney-general was ever directed by me or by anyone in my office to take a decision in this matter.”
At a second meeting, she recalled, “He asked if I trusted him. He also asked if I trusted his judgment to build a team. … ‘I want to believe in you and trust in you,’ I replied. ‘But it is hard to separate the two questions. I do not trust the people around you any longer.’”
“I could see the agitation visibly building in the Prime Minister,” she continued. “His mood was shifting. I remember seeing it. I remember feeling it. I had seen and felt this before on a few occasions, when he would get frustrated and angry. But this was different. He became strident and disputed everything I had said. He made it clear that everyone in his office was telling the truth and that I, and by extension Jessica Prince, my chief of staff, and others, were not. He told me I had not experienced what I said I did. He used the line that would later become public, that I had ‘experienced things differently.’”
“I knew what he was really asking,” she wrote. “What he was saying. In that moment, I knew he wanted me to lie – to attest that what had occurred had not occurred.”
