The grope story spreads across other major media:
http://ottawacitizen.com/opinion/columnists/macdougall-trudeaus-answer-to-old-groping-allegation-puts-lie-to-feminist-bona-fides
MacDougall: Trudeau's answer to old 'groping' allegation puts lie to 'feminist' bona fides
Andrew MacDougall Updated: June 27, 2018
But what does the feminist prime minister have to say about it now? We don’t know. To date, no reporter has seemingly asked Trudeau directly. The best we have is a statement from his office:
“(The prime minister) remembers being in Creston for the Avalanche Foundation but doesn’t think he had any negative interactions there.”
Yikes. I’ve written enough statements to know this exquisite serving of fudge from Trudeau’s office was crafted with lawyerly precision. “Doesn’t think” and “negative interactions” aren’t the confident words of a feminist hero. They’re weasel words meant to dull a story into going away.
...
There can’t be one standard for Trudeau and another for everyone else. Not on this question, not when the Prime Minister is the poster child for global feminism. We can’t have a do-as-I-say-not-as-I-allegedly-do “feminist” prime minister.
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/andrew-coyne-the-prime-minister-has-to-say-something-about-groping-accusation-and-yet-what-can-he-say
Andrew Coyne: Trudeau has to say something about groping accusation. Yet what can he say?
Andrew Coyne June 27, 2018 9:41 PM EDT
He has to say something, and he has to say it himself - he can’t just leave it to his media relations people. Yet what can he say? If he says flat out that it never happened, any of it, he risks being accused of victim-shaming: it was, after all, this prime minister who admonished the public that we should believe all such accusations.
On the other hand, if he acknowledges even having had an unpleasant confrontation with the reporter, never mind the misconduct of which he is accused, he admits that the story his office has been repeating for the past few weeks, that he “doesn’t think” there were any “negative interactions,” is a lie - unless he only just recalled it.
If he confessed “I did it. It was a fleeting moment of madness for which I apologized at the time, and which I regret today,” that would not be the worst thing in the world, assuming no other cases emerged. Except that, having famously established, with great fanfare, a zero tolerance policy for his party and himself in such matters, with no statute of limitations, he would then have to explain why he should not have to pay the same price that others have had to pay for similar offences.
There are two issues here, in sum. There is the matter of what went on between two people in a small town in B.C. in August of 2000. And there is the prime minister’s continuing refusal to address it, and the many reasons why this might be so.
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/joe-oliver-groping-allegations-snare-justin-trudeau-in-a-trap-he-created-himself
Joe Oliver: Groping allegations snare Justin Trudeau in a trap he created himself
Joe Oliver June 29, 2018 3:41 PM EDT
Now that his statements have returned home to roost, Canadians are entitled to expect the prime minister to honour his words. The fact he occupies the highest office in the country is not a defence. To the contrary, he should be held to at least as high a standard as he and others demand of all elected officials. To excuse the prime minister, of all people, in the current environment, especially in the light of his self-righteous pronouncements, would be a glaring double standard.
If he is guilty, Trudeau should come clean and apologize for his inappropriate behaviour. If he’s innocent, he should deny the allegation but apologize for his rush to judgment of others who were swiftly punished without due process.
Unfortunately, an admission could severely damage his credibility, while a denial would be construed as calling his accuser a liar. And yet, as long as he stays silent, hoping it will go away, he will be seen as abdicating his moral leadership as Canada’s first feminist prime minister on the extraordinarily prominent issue of sexual harassment. This will not end well for him as the media pursues the story, as they must.
And even the Liberal-friendly Toronto Star as well:
https://www.thestar.com/opinion/star-columnists/2018/06/28/on-groping-allegation-trudeau-ducks-the-rules-he-set.html
On groping allegation, Trudeau ducks the rules he set
By Tim Harper National Affairs Columnist
Thu., June 28, 2018
Right now, we are left with a ‘she said, he said,’ 18 years later.
She has the right to remain silent.
He is the prime minister, a self-styled feminist who has acted decisively and quickly when other such allegations have been raised about caucus and cabinet ministers.
He owes the country more clarity than a statement from his office.
It comes with the job.
And because it’s 2018.
anic:
