Exploring Justin Trudeau’s most controversial moments

Justin Trudeau's ascension to Canadian Prime Minister in 2015 thrust him into the global spotlight, yet behind the facade, he has been entangled in several significant scandals. Here are seven of the most prominent.

One of the first big scandals Trudeau faced after he became Prime Minister was actually a bit of a silly issue. He was accused of elbowing a female Member of Parliament (MP) while trying to start a vote during a heated debate over Bill C-4 according to CBC News. 

Trudeau grabbed Conservative Party opposition whip Gordon Brown by his arm in order to guide him to his seat and during the encounter the Prime Minister’s elbow smashed into New Democratic Party MP Ruth Ellen Brousseau, pushing her back quite violently.

"I was trying to start the vote, the prime minister grabbed my arm. I immediately told the prime minister to let go of me — now," Brown later said in a statement. "I later told the prime minister he should NOT have gotten out of his seat," the Conservative MP added.

Canadian media had a field day with the encounter as it was the first major misstep the very socially liberal Trudeau had made since taking office, a fact that Trudeau’s enemies were quick to point out immediately after the incident in the House of Commons. 

"What kind of man elbows a woman? It's pathetic! You're pathetic!" NDP Leader Tom Mulcair said at the time. "He made us feel unsafe and we're deeply troubled by the conduct of the prime minister of this country," MP Niki Ashton said later in a statement. 

The Aga Khan Scandal was the first time most Canadians realized that Trudeau might have been just a regular old politician who committed the same political sins as every leader before him. In this case, it involved accepting a free vacation from a billionaire. 

The long and short of the scandal was that Trudeau accepted a free vacation from Aga Khan to his private residence in The Bahamas for eight days and while there the Prime Minister traveled to several places via the billionaire's helicopter according to Wikipedia.

Trudeau met with Khan as well as John Kerry while on his trip and the cost of the whole vacation came to a grand total of $215,000. But the major issue according to the National Post was that Khan’s charity was later given $50 million in funding from the government. 

Canada’s Ethics Commission later ruled that Trudeau had broken the country’s ethics laws according to the Globe and Mail, which was the first time a Canadian PM violated federal ethics laws. But little happened as a result and Trudeau never admitted guilt. 

"I should have taken precautions and cleared my family vacation and dealings with the Aga Khan in advance," Trudeau told reporters after the ruling. "I'm sorry I didn't, and in the future, I will be clearing all my family vacations with the commissioner's office."

In 2018, the PM tried to make a good impression while in India and decided to embrace the country’s traditional outfits with his family. This did not go over well with Indian politician Omar Abdullah who tweeted his criticism of Trudeau for his over-the-top display. 

“Is it just me or is this choreographed cuteness all just a bit much now? Also FYI we Indians don’t dress like this every day sir, not even in Bollywood,” Abdullah tweeted. 

The media later ripped Trudeau a new one. Maclean's Magazine called the Prime Minister "Mr. Dressup" and CTV News noted that social media went wild accusing the Trudeau’s of cultural appropriation while others online defended the family’s fashion choice. 

This scandal was a bit complicated but it basically boiled down to Trudeau allegedly pressuring Justice Minister and Attorney General Jody Wilson-Reybold into giving SNC Lavalin a deal instead of pursuing a criminal case for fraud and corruption as per CBC. 

Wilson-Reybold quickly resigned from Trudeau’s cabinet and after the story broke the country’s Ethics Commissioner later found that the Prime Minister had violated Section 9 of Canada’s Conflict of Interest Act. It was the second time the PM broke ethics laws. 

For a Prime Minister that made his political bones on his socially liberal agenda, Trudeau sure had a lot of instances that revealed his cultural insensitivity. The best example of which came during the 2018 election when pictures of the PM in blackface surfaced. 

Three separate images from three separate events where Trudeau had dressed in black and brown face came to light according to Global News and Wikipedia noted the three incidents really made some Canadians question if the PM would be a leader race issue. 

This was another scandal involving political favors and some of Trudeau’s family members, who had been paid a total of $425,000 for appearing at a variety of events for the WE Charity. But there was one major problem, the charity had a sole-source contract with Trudeau's government. 

WE Charity was the sole administrator of the Canada student service grant, which was a $912 million dollar program according to CBC News. The Ethics Commissioner cleared the Prime Minister of wrongdoing but it still left a bad taste in the mouths of voters. 

While attending Queen Elizabeth’s funeral, Trudeau spent a grand total of $400,000 on hotel rooms, one of which cost Canadian taxpayers £4800, or $6000 Canadian dollars at the time according to the Toronto Sun. The cost became a big issue in the media…