Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was condemned by opposition MPs in parliament on Wednesday after he accused a Jewish member of the Conservative Party of “standing with people who wave swastikas.”
Trudeau was being questioned by Conservative MP Melissa Lantsman, who represents the heavily Jewish Thornhill riding. Lantsman, the first Jewish woman elected as a Conservative MP and a descendant of Holocaust survivors, asked Trudeau about his invoking of emergency measures and the fact that he described participants in the trucker convoy in Ottawa and other areas of Canada as “very often misogynistic, racist, women-haters, science-deniers, the fringe.”
Lantsman began by reading a quote that Trudeau said six years ago: “If Canadians are going to trust their government, their government needs to trust Canadians.”
She accused Trudeau of changing his tune during that time and being responsible for “[fanning] the flames of an unjustified national emergency” and asked, “When did the prime minister lose his way?”
Responding to Lantsman, Trudeau said: “Conservative Party members can stand with people who wave swastikas, they can stand with people who wave the Confederate flag.”
(Editors Note: none of Trudeau’s descriptions were even remotely accurate, there were no Nazis and No confederate flags seen at the 20-day protest, there was an isolated report of one person with a Swastika flag, who was later outed as a left-wing pro mandate counter-protestor, also several freedom protestors were assailed by leftist counter-protests)
“We will choose to stand with Canadians who deserve to be able to get to their jobs, to be able to get their lives back. These illegal protests need to stop, and they will,” Trudeau said.
The opposition Conservative party members reacted in outrage, with the Speaker of the House of Commons Anthony Rota having to interject to restore calm to the chamber. Rota also chastised Trudeau to avoid using “inflammatory” language, Fox News reported.
Conservative MP Dane Lloyd denounced Trudeau for his accusatory statement: “Mr. Speaker, I’ve never seen such shameful and dishonorable remarks coming from this prime minister. My great-grandfather flew over 30 missions over Nazi Germany. My great-great-uncle’s body lies at the bottom of the English Channel. There are members of this Conservative caucus who are the descendants of victims of the Holocaust.”
