Justin Trudeau’s blackface photos said a lot about who he was. The ensuing furor says something more relevant to the Oct. 21 federal election.

While the opposition and the media are obsessed with the story, a great swath of Canadians don’t seem similarly agitated. This isn’t much different than the SNC-Lavalin affair, which hurt Trudeau but not lethally, despite the opposition and media blazing away at him for months.

In 2015, almost the entire Canadian media establishment endorsed Stephen Harper, but Canadians ignored the advice. In 2003, they rejected the Conservative siren call, blared by most media, to join the American-led war on Iraq.

Amid all the real and manufactured self-flagellation about what a racist country we still are, it’s useful to remind ourselves of this: That Trudeau had to apologize so profusely and take a big hit to his image is a measure of how far we’ve come as a country.

Holland, by contrast, is still tearing itself apart on whether or not to ban Black Pete, Santa’s helper, the dark-faced character with curly hair and big lips. A significant portion of the populace, not just violence-prone neo-Nazis, are agitating to Keep the Pete in the name of Dutch tradition and national identity.

The biggest outrage over the Trudeau photos has not come from minorities. As dismayed as they are, especially African Canadians, over his reprehensible past behaviour, they’ve said mostly, let’s get on with the real issues.

The loud agitation by some white Canadians is highly suspect. They include those who harbour visceral dislike of Trudeau for his positions on multiculturalism, pluralism, immigration and, especially, his ostensibly politically correct apologies to Indigenous people and other minorities for past wrongs. “What about the majority?” they mutter, letting off a puff of white resentment. Yet here they are dismissing his mea culpas as insufficient repentance.

Similarly, Andrew Scheer’s posturing is disingenuous.

Just before the photo furor, he told Canadians that his opposition to abortion and same-sex marriage is irrelevant because that was in the past — if elected prime minister, he would not reopen either issue. But it is more relevant than the photos. Those date back two decades to frivolous pranks and parties; his more recent position is on fundamental public policy that he proclaimed in Parliament.

Scheer recently also urged Canadians to forgive Conservative election candidates whose online racist, anti-French and anti-Muslim posts have been exposed. He wouldn’t fire them — “I accept that people can make mistakes in the past and can own up to that.” Why, then, a different standard for Trudeau?

Scheer must also explain if he still condones the bigotry pursued by his Conservatives under Harper. They demonized Muslims, especially vulnerable women, fanned Islamophobia and proposed a snitch line as part of their Barbaric Cultural Practices Act. Does Scheer have any regrets over any element of those toxic culture wars? If so, let’s hear them.

Under his own leadership, the Conservatives continued to cultivate Islamophobes, holding them up as experts on Islam and Muslims. A vast majority of his MPs voted against a simple motion condemning Islamophobia following the murder of six Muslims in a mosque in Quebec City. He himself insists on keeping his campaign chair, Hamish Marshall, despite past involvement with the far-right Rebel Media website.

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It is not credible to argue, as have Scheer and even NDP leader Jagmeet Singh, that Trudeau has been pretending to be someone he’s not, multiculturalist and feminist. But a closet racist and misogynist does not name 50 per cent women to his cabinet; install more Sikhs as ministers than the cabinet in India; bring in 50,000 Syrian refugees; promote equity, even if failing to reduce systemic discrimination; and successfully brand Canada internationally as a land of liberal values.

Skeptical we ought to be about Trudeau’s self-serving apologies. Examine his character flaws we should. But obsessing exclusively on those is to play into the Conservative strategy of downplaying policies and track records while fanning resentment against Trudeau and personalizing their attacks — “Justin Trudeau’s carbon tax,” “Justin Trudeau’s trade deal,” “Justin Trudeau’s refugees” — verbal assaults with Trumpian echoes of “Crooked Hillary.”

Haroon Siddiqui , former Star columnist and editorial page editor emeritus, is a senior fellow at Massey College, University of Toronto. siddiqui.canada@gmail.com

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