Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau finally responded Thursday to allegations that he groped a female reporter 18 years ago.
A statement from the Prime Minister’s Office said Trudeau “doesn’t think he had any negative interactions” while he was in the place the incident took place, according to the reporter.
“As the prime minister has said before, he has always been very careful to treat everyone with respect. His first experiences with activism were on the issue of sexual assault at McGill, and he knows the importance of being thoughtful and respectful,” reads the statement.
“He remembers being in Creston for the Avalanche Foundation, but doesn’t think he had any negative interactions there.”
When the story initially broke, the National Post conducted a detailed investigation into the claims, though the reporter declined to give the Post a comment.
Even Canada’s liberal media are distressed. CBC News opined that “the prime minister is stuck: he can’t confirm or deny. As a result, his office opted for the most unsatisfactory of all possible responses, telling the National Post that Trudeau does not recall any “negative interactions” in Creston during that time. In other words, Canada’s highest-profile women’s rights advocate has been stricken by a convenient bout of amnesia.”
The national affairs columnist for the Toronto Star, a newspaper that has always endorsed the Liberal Party in federal elections, wasn’t impressed either.
“The prime minister’s laconic response to this, the ‘I can’t remember, so it’ll go away,’ posture has only invited greater scrutiny. But something appears to have happened, and the way Trudeau has responded is too much 2000 and not enough 2018. This is especially troubling coming from him because he is breaking rules he has set himself.”