‘Canadians should forgive Trudeau’, says Varadkar

The Taoiseach has said people should accept the apology given by Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau for wearing blackface.

Mr Trudeau has been criticised after a yearbook photo surfaced of him in brownface at a 2001 Arabian Nights costume party and two other similar incidents in which he wore dark make-up were highlighted publicly.

With elections just a month away in Canada, Mr Turdeau apologised and begged Canadians to forgive him.

Asked about the controversy, Mr Varadkar said: “Mr Trudeau has apologised. He’s given a very direct apology about those actions in the past and I think people should accept that apology.”

The Taoiseach was speaking in New York where is he addressed a special UN summit on climate change and also gave a speech at a leaders dialogue on the Christchurch call.

During his address to other leaders on cybercrime and terrorism, Mr Varadkar said an alliance of committed and diverse leaders is now needed to “counter the spread of violent extremist content” online.

He told the assembly that the Government is now preparing an Online Safety and Media Regulation Bill to regulate harmful content online and implement the EU Audio-visual Media Services Directive.

“We will also establish a regulatory authority with enforcement powers to ensure that technology companies take steps to ensure the safety of their users online,” he added.

Mr Varadkar said the European headquarters of many of the world’s largest internet service providers, including Facebook, Google, YouTube, and Twitter, are based in Dublin.

We take our responsibilities as regulators very seriously. Within the EU we are working to develop a specific framework for terrorist content to tackling the dissemination of content online.

Today, the Taoiseach will attend the opening session of the General Assembly, as well as a Leaders Lunch hosted by the UN secretary general Antonio Guterres. Tomorrow, he will represent Ireland at the UN High Level Political Forum on Sustainable Development.

President Michael D Higgins is also in New York this week where he will give Ireland’s national statement at the general debate in UN headquarters tomorrow.

A key part of the President’s programme will be his meetings with representatives of other member states for the purpose of raising Ireland’s candidature for election to the Security Council for the term 2021-2022.

This is the final high-level week before the election in June 2020 and a crucial lobbying point for the campaign and a number of ministers are also in New York as part of this.