Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, fresh off his botched handling of freedom convoy protests of his government's policies surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic, may have thought a trip abroad to address the European Parliament would be a nice reprieve from criticism at home. But that's not what he got. At all.
Instead, two members of the European Parliament laid into Trudeau, comparing him to a dictator and attacking his gall to speak about threats to Democracy after his own actions in Canada.
"It would have been more appropriate for Mr. Trudeau, Prime Minister of Canada, to address this house according to Article 144 — an article which was specifically designed to debate violations of human rights, democracy, and the rule of law — which is clearly the case with Mr. Trudeau," said German MEP Christine Anderson.
"Then again, a prime minister who openly admires the Chinese basic dictatorship, who tramples on fundamental rights by persecuting and criminalizing his own citizens as terrorists just because they dared to stand up to his perverted concept of democracy, should not be allowed to speak in this house at all," Anderson added.
"Mr. Trudeau, you are a disgrace for any democracy. Please spare us your presence."
Watch another European MP take Prime Minister Trudeau to task for his authoritarianism, mistreatment of Canadians, and his hypocrisy. pic.twitter.com/M9xXmHuP9L
— Keith Wilson, Q.C. (@ikwilson) March 24, 2022
But Anderson's wasn't the only not-so-warm "welcome" Trudeau received.
MEP Mislav Kolakusic from Croatia also torched Trudeau for his handling of the freedom convoy, saying "Canada, once a symbol of the modern world, has become a symbol of civil rights violations under your quasi-liberal boot in recent months."
"Freedom — the right to choose, the right to life, the right to health, the right to work — for many of us are fundamental human rights for which millions of citizens of Europe and the world have laid down their lives," Kolakusic noted. "To defend our rights and the rights of our children, which we have acquired over the centuries, many of us including myself are willing to risk our own freedom and our lives," he added. "Unfortunately today there are those among us who trample on these fundamental values."
"We watched how you trample women with horses, how you block the bank accounts of single parents so that they can't even pay their children's education and medicine, that they can't pay utilities, mortgages for their homes," Kolakusic reminded Trudeau. "To you, these may be liberal methods, for many citizens of the world, it is a dictatorship of the worst kind."
PM Trudeau, in recent months, under your quasi-liberal boot, Canada ???? has become a symbol of civil rights violations. The methods we have witnessed may be liberal to you, but to many citizens around the??it seemed like a dictatorship of the worst kind. pic.twitter.com/FZuc6aDZ1I
— Mislav Kolakusic MEP ???????? (@mislavkolakusic) March 23, 2022
While Trudeau might think highly of himself, his trip to Europe delivered a nice reality check on how not just his citizens but leaders elsewhere in the world view his "leadership."