In another embarrassing international incident, an Italian newspaper showed Justin Trudeau in blackface with the headline, “This buffoon wants to teach us lessons”, after he lectured the Italian prime minister about LBGT rights at a G7 conference in Japan in May 2023. Telling her “Canada is concerned about some of the positions Italy is taking in terms of LGBT rights.” King of Woke added that he was looking forward to speaking to her “more about the issue and other democratic principles that the world needs”.

She rejected Trudeau’s criticism and said that the Liberal leader had fallen “victim” to “fake news” and propaganda, and even said that his assessment "doesn't correspond to reality." Sky News Australia host Rita Panahi got in on the act, saying Meloni’s grimace while being lectured “really sums up what all of us think of the repugnant, incompetent Trudeau”.

Trudeau’s critique on Friday came in response to news that Meloni’s government told Italian city councils to only list biological parents on birth records, rather than listing same-sex couples. Meloni has been heavily criticized by LGBTQ rights groups for statements she made before and after her election, including that only heterosexual parents should raise children.

While some may disagree with her comments, it is an internal domestic matter and it is inappropriate for our Prime Minister to publicly lecture a foreign leader on their opinions because they don’t agree with his personal views.

But claiming to be a feminist, which is idiotic enough, Trudeau is increasingly perceived as a hectoring grandstander and a hypocrite with his “holier than thou” attitude. During his trip to Mexico in 2017, during the NAFTA negotiations, he criticized Enrique Pena Nieto’s government for its inaction on women’s rights, ignoring the fact that Pena Nieto’s party instituted policies to achieve gender parity in Congress.

Trudeau’s record on this front is complicated by the SNC-Lavalin scandal, Collier says. When Trudeau named Jody Wilson-Raybould as the minister of justice in October 2015, she became the first Indigenous person to hold the job. Then, he shuffled her to veterans affairs in January 2019, a move widely perceived as a demotion well before the scandal itself became public.

She resigned as veterans affairs minister in February. In March, Treasury Board president Jane Philpott announced she, too, would step down from cabinet. In early April, Trudeau kicked both women out of the Liberal caucus, saying: “The trust that previously existed between these two individuals and our team has been broken”. But it was widely viewed that they thrown “under the bus” as scapegoats.