OTTAWA - Canadian Prime Minister Justin
Trudeau's brownface picture scandal deepened on Thursday as
other images of him emerged wearing dark make-up only hours
after he had apologized for what he characterized as a racist
act at a 2001 costume party.
With less than five weeks to go before a national election,
Time magazine published a picture of him on Wednesday in
brownface from an "Arabian Nights" party when he was a
29-year-old teacher at a private school in Vancouver.
During his apology, he also admitted to performing "Day O",
a traditional Jamaican song made famous by Harry Belafonte, in
brownface during a high school talent show years earlier. The
Canadian Broadcasting Corp then published a picture from that
performance that was confirmed as authentic by a spokeswoman.
Also, Global News put out a video showing Trudeau again in
dark make-up making faces and sticking his tongue out. It was
not immediately clear exactly when that video was from.
"We can confirm that it is him and it's from the early
1990s," a Liberal official said of the video without clarifying
the circumstances around the video.
Trudeau was in Winnipeg, Manitoba, for a campaign stop, and
he was due to speak to reporters at an event there at 2:15 p.m.
ET (1815 GMT).
He spent the morning calling "many" Liberal candidates and
community leaders to fully apologize for what he did "knowing
how racist and hurtful this type of thing was to do,"
spokeswoman Eleanore Catenaro said.
Trudeau has championed racial equality and diversity as
prime minister over the past four years, and he has three
prominent ministers of Indian descent in his cabinet.
But it was clear when his main competitor, Conservative
Party leader Andrew Scheer, called him "unfit to govern" late on
Wednesday that it could be a turning point in a very tight
election race that now has the two virtually tied.
"It is clearly very damaging at this time and the full
impacts will not become clear for a week or so," said Frank
Graves, head of EKOS Research polling company.
"I don't think it will be fatal but time will tell. The
Liberals have high ground on the diversity and racism file, and
Trudeau needs to unremittingly note how he screwed up... Voters
will then decide," he said.