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“I think there will be an impact on people’s decisions in this campaign in relation to what Mr. Trudeau has shown himself to be in public and now what we have seen in his private life,” Singh said.

“I think it shows that there is a difference there and a lot of legitimate questions coming forward because of that.”

The emergence, first Wednesday night, and then Thursday morning, of the photos and a video of Trudeau in black- or brownface brought the planned activities of the campaign to a screeching halt for the Liberals.

Trudeau spent Wednesday night and the bulk of Thursday morning on the phone with members of cabinet, candidates and staff from visible minority communities, some of whom — cautiously — stood up in his defence on Thursday.

“I told him, ’Prime Minister, people are going to hurt, but I think the black community will be forgiving,”’ said Liberal Greg Fergus, who is chair of the cross-party black caucus on Parliament Hill and is running for re-election in a riding in Quebec but adjacent to Ottawa.

“The reason why they are going to be forgiving is because they have seen what he has done and they have appreciated what he has done,” he said.

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Fergus said that included putting Viola Desmond, a black civil-rights activist from Nova Scotia, on the $10 bill, investments to improve the lives of the black community, having a diverse Liberal caucus and declaring that anti-black racism exists in Canada.

Trudeau suggested that even actions like those don’t absolve him, entirely.

“This has been personally a moment where I’ve had to reflect on the fact that wanting to do good, wanting to do better, simply isn’t good enough,” he said.

“You need to take responsibility for mistakes that hurt people who thought I was an ally. Hopefully many of them still consider me an ally, even though this was a terrible mistake.”

The first image of Trudeau that surfaced showed him dressed in an Aladdin costume with his hands and face darkened and was published by Time magazine. He had dressed up for a theme gala at the private school where he taught.

When profusely apologizing for that on Wednesday night, he confessed to another: wearing makeup during a high-school talent show, while performing a version of Harry Belafonte’s “Banana Boat Song (Day-O).”