Prime Minister Justin Trudeau paused for a long\u00a021 seconds when asked Tuesday to comment on U.S.\u00a0President Donald Trump’s threat to use military force against protesters in the United States demonstrating against the death of a black man in police custody.<\/p>\n
After several false starts, Trudeau avoided criticizing the president directly while taking aim at social “injustices.”<\/p>\n “We all watch in horror and consternation at what is going on in the United States,” he said.\u00a0“It is a time to pull people together … it is a time to listen. It is a time to learn, when injustices continue despite progress over years and decades.”<\/p>\n At no point did Trudeau mention the U.S. president by name or criticize his handling of the situation.<\/p>\n On Monday, Trump directed police and national guardsmen under his control to forcibly remove protesters from Lafayette Square, a park directly across from the north lawn of the White House, so that he could later walk to neighbouring St. John’s Episcopal Church for a photo opportunity.<\/p>\n During a Monday press conference in the Rose Garden \u2014 with riots and looting taking place in major U.S. cities and with the sound of tear gas guns firing in the background \u2014\u00a0Trump promised to be a “law and order president.”<\/p>\n Trump warned that if governors don’t deploy the National Guard in sufficient numbers to “dominate the streets,” the military would\u00a0step in to “quickly solve the problem for them.”<\/p>\n When asked again why he did not want to directly\u00a0address Trump’s actions, Trudeau said his job as prime minister is to focus on Canadians.<\/p>\n “Canadians need a government that will be there for them, that will support them and that will move us forward in the right direction, and I will do that,” Trudeau said.<\/p>\n Trudeau has long been reluctant to wade into domestic U.S. politics or condemn\u00a0Trump’s more controversial remarks.<\/p>\n Trump has been known to lash out at his critics and Trudeau has tried to maintain a diplomatic relationship with the leader of Canada’s largest trading partner.<\/p>\n Trudeau did not mention Trump by name when he condemned white nationalist protests in Charlottesville, Virginia that turned violent when neo-Nazis clashed with other activists (Trump said there were “some very fine people on\u00a0both sides”)\u00a0but rather reminded Canadians that racism is alive in our own country.<\/p>\n When Trump told four minority Democratic congresswomen to go back to where they came from,\u00a0Trudeau pivoted\u00a0again to the Canadian context.<\/p>\n “That is not how we do things in Canada. A Canadian is a Canadian is a Canadian,” Trudeau said.<\/p>\n When Trump reportedly called Haiti and\u00a0some African nations\u00a0“shithole”\u00a0countries,\u00a0Trudeau said\u00a0he wouldn’t weigh in on what the president “may or may not have said” about predominantly black countries.<\/p>\n “I think you all know that I’m not going to opine on what the president may or may not have said. I will simply repeat that Canada is a country of openness, of respect,”\u00a0Trudeau said.<\/p>\n The prime minister was also pressed Tuesday to respond to a September 2017 UN report that recommended major structural changes to Canadian life to improve the lives of people of African descent. Some of the report’s recommendations have been gathering dust since it was first presented to the government.<\/p>\n The report recommended an apology from Trudeau for Canada’s history of slavery and called on the federal government to\u00a0consider providing reparations to black people for enslavement and historical injustices. It said black people should be recognized as a “distinct group.”<\/p>\n “We need to take a hard look at our institutions\u00a0to ensure that those barriers that may be invisible to many of us, but are far too present for black Canadians and racialized\u00a0Canadians, are addressed,” he said of the UN report.<\/p>\n Speaking later in the House of Commons as party leaders paid tribute to Floyd, Trudeau again expressed solidarity with minorities calling for an end to systemic racism\u00a0in Canada.<\/p>\n He acknowledged his history of wearing blackface \u2014 “I’m not perfect,”\u00a0he said \u2014 while saying such\u00a0mistakes are “not an excuse to not do the right thing. It’s not an excuse to not step up.”<\/p>\n “I know that for so many people listening right now, the last thing you want to hear is another speech on racism from a white politician,”\u00a0he said.<\/p>\n “I’m not here today to describe a reality I do not know, or speak to a pain I have not felt. I’m here because I want you to know our government is listening.”<\/p>\n Trudeau pointed to actions his government has already taken \u2014 including\u00a0a $45-million plan\u00a0called “Building a Foundation for Change: Canada’s Anti-Racism Strategy” and the creation of an anti-racism secretariat \u2014 but vowed to do more in the wake of Floyd’s death\u00a0in Minnesota.<\/p>\n NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh said black and Indigenous people are “tired of pretty words and speeches from people in power” and urged Trudeau to take immediate action to reform the criminal justice system to make it fairer for people of colour.<\/p>\n Singh said Canada must confront its own history of racist\u00a0violence.<\/p>\n He spoke of\u00a0Regis Korchinski-Paquet, a black trans woman\u00a0he said\u00a0died in “suspicious circumstances” after an interaction with Toronto police last week, and\u00a0Stewart Kevin Andrews, a young Indigenous man\u00a0who was killed by police in Winnipeg in April.<\/p>\n “How many more people need to die before there’s action?” Singh said.<\/p>\n In his own speech on the Floyd death, Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer cited the contributions of black Canadians to national life \u2014 from athletes like Harry Jerome to businesspeople like cattle rancher John Ware and civil rights activists like Viola Desmond \u2014 and said anti-black racism should never be tolerated.<\/p>\n “Racism is real, it is painful and it is wrong,”\u00a0Scheer said. “No one should ever feel unsafe because of the colour of their skin, especially around police officers.”<\/p>\n CBC<\/p>\n‘I’m not perfect’<\/h2>\n