Canadian prime minister Justin Trudeau speaks with a forked tongue                                                        

Speaking with a forked tongue is an old Indian phrase which means someone is giving you two versions of a single event.         

The single event I am writing about took place at a musical event in Creston British Columbia, the west-most province in Canada 18 years ago.

Rose Knight confirmed recently that she was the reporter that was referred to in an editorial in 2000 in the Creston Valley Advance when she stated that she was groped by Trudeau while covering the event.

Trudeau At the time was a 28-year-old unmarried teacher with a famous name but no political involvement. He had an encounter in the crowd with a young reporter from the local Creston Valley Advance, who subsequently penned a short editorial stating that Trudeau “inappropriately ‘handled’” a reporter (Rose Knight) and engaged in “groping her.”

He apologized at the time for being “so forward,” she wrote, and offered the odd and troubling explanation that he wouldn’t have acted that way if he’d known she was also reporting the event for a national paper. She confirmed that Trudeau did apologize to her for the incident.

The way I interpret that statement of Trudeau is that he would have no qualms about groping the woman if she wasn’t a news reporter. In my opinion, he was at that time no different than a typical groper of women.

There’s no reason to doubt her story, and the former editor and publisher of the Creston Valley Advance both backed up her version of events. If they hadn’t, they never would have published her story.

Those of us who were alive in 1974, will remember what happened to President Nixon when he lied under oath that he knew nothing whatsoever about the break-in in an office of the Democrats. His lying caught up to him when it was discovered that he had secret hidden tapes  that clearly showed that he knew all about the break- in. On August 9^th 1974 after addressing the nation on television the previous evening. Nixon chose to resign after realizing public opinion was not in his favor to remain in office.  I was a private  investigator during that night he resigned and I was sitting in my car conducting a surveillance when I heard his resignation speech at seven in the evening, forty-four years ago.

Prime Minister Justine Trudeau continues implying publically, that he didn’t do it by speaking with his forked tongue. Here is how he does  it.. “If I did it, I am sorry.”  “Hey dummy. You apologized for doing it. Innocent people don’t apologize for evil deeds they didn’t do.”

He has been publically shown to be a politician who speaks with a forked tongue. Of course many politicians do it. He reminds me of the fable about the king who had no clothes. He moves about sprouting innocence and yet, his response to the allegation is rhetorically speaking as naked as the king with no clothes.

When pressed by a reporter, t the Liberal Party leader continued to insist he didn’t act inappropriately. Doesn’t he know that groping a woman without her permission is a criminal act?  Criminal acts are inappropriate.

Trudeau expanded on comments he made when he told reporters he didn’t remember any negative interactions on the day in which he was accused of groping a Creston Daily Advance journalist.

Are we to believe that when a woman is groped by a man, he is unaware that she is upset?  Has Trudeau groped so many women, their reactions are all a blur? 

Now brace yourself to what is coming next. He insisted he did not feel he had done anything wrong when he groped her. His words were; I’ve been reflecting very carefully on what I remember from that incident almost 20 years ago.  I do not feel that I acted inappropriately in any way. But I respect the fact that someone else might have experienced that differently.”  You think?

I listened to him on the radio during an interview about that event. When asked if he really groped the woman, he answered by telling the reporter that woman are to be treated properly and that no man should be molesting them etc. That wasn’t what the reporter asked him. Trudeau’s forked tongue gave the reporter an answer unrelated to what the question was.

Trudeau has now acknowledged that he thinks he proffered an apology to her, but he tempers the acknowledgment by saying that if he did so, it was because he sensed that she was not comfortable with their interaction at that event,”

His victim wrote in her email. “His latest interview is still a tap dance around the questions put to him by reporters and in Parliament.”

There are some people who will say that there’s no obligation on anyone to pursue such a matter after so many years, especially when it would bring a firestorm of publicity because of Trudeau’s rise to high office.

If Trudeau had admitted outright that that he did grope the woman and then said it was a most impropriate thing to do to any woman and that he apologized to her the next day (after her story was published) most people would think better of him for admitting what he had done and move on to other to other  matters of interest. Instead, he kept dancing around the truth just as Nixon did and that infuriates decent people who expect honesty from their politicians.

When I was a child and did something stupid;  if my mother asked me if I did it, I admitted to her that I did it. She didn’ punish me if I was honest enough to admit my wrongdoing. Trial judges are often lenient to defendants who readily admit what they did that brought them before the court.

Trudeau won’t be remembered so much for the groping as he will in his initial denial. No-one likes a liar. It is easier to forgive a minor groping incident than the lie from the groper that follows the event.

Something to keep in mind: This was a brief, one-off encounter in a crowded public place, not an assignation at a home or hotel room like what happened to the victims of Weinstien  and Crosby. In almost all the recent cases of men brought down by accusations of sexual wrong-doing, from Harvey Weinstein to Bill Cosby and Norman Hardie, a pattern is established. Once one or two women tell their stories, others join in. Abusers tend to be serial offenders, accustomed to wielding their sexual and financial power. No one else has accused Trudeau of inappropriate behaviour which goes to his credit

Trudeau’s critics, especially those who delight in mocking his feminist pretensions, see this as so much dodging and weaving. But he’s actually right. As society grapples with matters of harassment and abuse we’re finding that men and women can be experiencing two different realities. It’s important that men, in particular, listen carefully and learn, especially as expectations of respectful behaviour evolve.

How Trudeau has handled this saga is another matter. His office first attempted to brush it off by saying the prime minister “doesn’t think he had any negative interactions” at the Creston festival. In other words, I don’t remember. That wouldn’t wash.

There’s also the matter of perceived hypocrisy: Trudeau has held others to a rigorous standard in these matters, so how can he let himself off the hook so easily?

This story could still develop. In particular, if other women emerge to make similar accusations, it will become much more serious for the prime minister.

But at this point in time, only those inclined to attack him for other reasons will continue to harp on what went down in Creston so long ago.