Canada’s in a mess up to its ears, and all we’re talking about is blackface and a reusable cup

Today's politics is all about swift-boating—the PR pistol-whipping of your political opponent. And the transformation of political campaigns into tacky reality shows is not limited to how voters can be manipulated in the digital age. It has also affected what stories get big play, and which get short shrift. Click-bait is everywhere, including the media, which takes me to the sorry episode of Justin Trudeau’s blackface.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, pictured on Sept. 20, 2019, campaigning in Toronto with Liberal MPs Nate Erskine-Smith and Julie Dabrusin. Much more consequential questions surround this blackface story. Given that Justin Trudeau has governed for a full term as PM, how can it be that his biggest electoral challenge, if the pollsters have it right, is to successfully apologize for events that took place in high school and early adulthood?How can this be a bigger challenge to his electability than the SNC-Lavalin affair, his foreign policy, and his broken promises? My guess? Blackface instantly inflames the emotions, while weighty policy matters are a drug on the market in the click-bait era.Photograph courtesy of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's Twitter

Opinion

BY MICHAEL HARRIS

September 30, 2019

HALIFAX—As Donald Trump dangles by the thread of his latest impeachable offence, what one historian has called his “historical merit” is on full display in Canada’s federal election. As reported in The Financial Times, Trump the ex-TV star, was one of the first to realize that poli...

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