Interim Staff:
On March 23, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau addressed the European Parliament in Brussels, where he was condemned by a half-dozen Members of European Parliament (MEP).
Trudeau talked about “rising threats to democracy” including Vladimir Putin’s Russia, inflation, and economic uncertainty. He told the half-empty chamber that “we must recommit ourselves to the work of strengthening our democracies, and demonstrate the principled leadership people are looking for.”
While a number of left-wing MEPs gave a standing ovation, a number of MEPs from right-leaning populist parties condemned Trudeau and his speech.
Christine Anderson, a German AfD MEP, rose to criticize the Prime Minister. “You are a disgrace,” she said, noting that Trudeau recently invoked emergency measures to clamp down on protests in the Canadian capital. Anderson called out Trudeau for trampling on “fundamental rights by criminalizing his own citizens as terrorists just because they dare to stand up to his perverted concept of democracy.”
Anderson also stated that it would have been more appropriate for Trudeau to address the European Parliament in response to Article 144, in which MEPs may debate “violations of human rights, democracy, and the rule of law, which is clearly the case with Mr. Trudeau.
Anderson tweeted her brief speech and it had garnered more than a million views in the first 24 hours it was posted.
Bernhard Zimniok, another German AfD MEP, said of Trudeau’s extraordinary measures used against the Freedom Convoy, “clearly, the values of democracy are despised by this individual,” and added “let us not give someone like this any speaking time in this house of democracy.”
Virginie Joron, a National Rally MEP from France, attended the speech wearing a Freedom Convoy t-shirt emblazoned with the Canadian and U.S. flags. He tweeted, “on the occasion of Trudeau’s visit to the European Parliament, I pay tribute to all of those who stood up against his mad, liberticidal policy.”
Mislav Kolakusic, an independent MEP from Croatia, said of Trudeau, “there are those of us who trample on those fundamental values,” as he praised the Freedom Convoy for resisting Trudeau’s agenda. He also said Trudeau’s government is a “dictatorship of the worst kind.” Kolakusic said, “Canada, once a symbol of the modern world, has become a symbol of civil rights violations under your quasi-liberal boot in recent months.” He condemned Trudeau’s blocking of bank accounts of protest organizers, which hindered their ability to pay their mortgages and utility bills.
Cristian Terhes, a Christian Democratic National Peasant’s Party MEP from Romania, refused to even attend Trudeau’s speech, saying her presence in the chamber would have validated Trudeau’s speech. She explained, “between Russian imperialist tyranny, promoted by Putin, and the neo-Marxist tyranny pretending to be progressivism promoted by the likes of Trudeau, in which people are deprived of their rights and freedoms, becoming objects of the state, I do not choose any.”
Terhes also said the Canadian Prime Minister can’t “teach democracy to Putin from the European Parliament when you trample with horse hooves your own citizens who are demanding their fundamental freedoms be respected.” Terhes was referencing an infamous video of a horse-mounted police officer knocking down a woman in the final days of the Freedom Convoy protest.
Both Anderson and Terhes also noted that Trudeau had previously talked about his admiration of the “basic dictatorship” in Red China. Anderson said, “then again, a Prime Minister who openly admires the Chinese ‘basic dictatorship,’ who tramples on fundamental rights by persecuting and criminalizing his own citizens … should not be allowed to speak in this house at all.”
Anderson concluded her comments: “Mr. Trudeau, you are a disgrace for any democracy … please spare us your presence.”
