Article content

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau gave his most detailed response yet to an 18-year-old allegation he groped a female reporter, confirming Thursday he had apologized to the woman at the time but saying he didn’t feel he had acted “in any way untoward.”

Facing reporters at Queen’s Park in Toronto after his first meeting with new Ontario Premier Doug Ford, Trudeau offered his most elaborate response to the allegation since it resurfaced in recent months.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or After 'reflecting very carefully' on groping allegation, Trudeau says he doesn't feel he acted inappropriately Back to video

“I’ve been reflecting very carefully on what I remember from that incident almost 20 years ago,” he said. “I do not feel that I acted inappropriately in any way. But I respect the fact that someone else might have experienced that differently.”

Photo by Handout

Criticism of Trudeau’s response to the allegations has grown louder since the Post published the first in-depth reporting on the allegation — confirming the woman’s authorship of the editorial and that she made separate contemporaneous complaints about the alleged incident to both her editor and publisher — and in light of his avowal that he has been “deeply engaged” on issues of sexual assault since his early 20s, the zero-tolerance policy for sexual misbehaviour he has imposed on his own political caucus and his previous statements that women should be believed when they raise allegations of impropriety.